Perspectives of Primary School Children of Filipino Immigrants on Their Home and School Experiences in South Australia
Perspectives of primary school children of Filipino immigrants on their home and school experiences in South Australia
Marizon Guillermo Yu BS Economics; MA Education
Thesis submitted in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy School of Education, Faculty of the Professions The University of Adelaide
February 2014
Table of contents
Table of contents ...... i
List of tables and figures ...... vi
Tables ...... vi
Figures ...... vi
Abstract ...... vii
Declaration ...... viii
Acknowledgements ...... ix
Chapter 1 Introduction ...... 1
1.1. The research questions and aims ...... 2
1.2. Theoretical framework and methodology: overview and justification ...... 6
1.3. Self-reflection ...... 8
1.4. Significance and contribution of the study...... 11
1.5. Limitations ...... 12
1.6. Organisation of the thesis ...... 13
Chapter 2 Review of literature and related studies ...... 14
2.1. Introduction ...... 14
2.2. The ethos of the Filipino ...... 15
2.2.1. Values on family ...... 19
2.2.1.1. Children in Filipino families ...... 21
2.2.2. Values on relationships with others ...... 25
2.2.3. Values on religion...... 27
2.2.4. Values on schooling ...... 28
2.2.4.1. The Philippine Basic Education Curriculum ...... 31
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2.3. Filipino migration to Australia: an overview ...... 36
2.3.1. Philippine-born population of Australia and South Australia ...... 37
2.4. Culturally diverse Australia ...... 45
2.4.1. Australian values in schools ...... 49
2.4.2. The Australian Curriculum ...... 51
2.4.3. Children of Filipino immigrants ...... 53
2.5. Conclusion ...... 57
Chapter 3 Theoretical framework...... 59
3.1. Introduction ...... 59
3.2. Rationale for the framework ...... 59
3.3. Symbolic interactionism: pragmatist contribution and basic principles ...... 60
3.3.1. Key concepts ...... 71
3.3.1.1. The self and others ...... 71
3.3.1.2. Identity and roles ...... 75
3.3.1.3. Socialisation of children ...... 78
3.3.1.3.1. Family as primary socialisation ...... 79
3.3.1.3.2. Peer socialisation ...... 82
3.3.1.3.3. Media socialisation of children ...... 83
3.3.1.3.4. School socialisation of immigrant children ...... 87
3.3.1.4. Interactionist view of coping ...... 95
3.3.2. Some criticisms of the framework ...... 96
3.4. Researching Filipino immigrant children’s home and school experiences ..... 98
3.5. Conclusion ...... 100
Chapter 4 Methodology ...... 103
4.1. Introduction ...... 103
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4.2. Symbolic interactionism and qualitative methodology ...... 103
4.3. The researcher as instrument in this study ...... 107
4.4. The research participants ...... 117
4.5. Interviewing...... 120
4.5.1. The interview questions ...... 125
4.6. Transcribing and translating...... 126
4.7. Data analysis ...... 128
4.8. Addressing validity and reliability in qualitative research ...... 131
4.9. Conclusion ...... 136
Chapter 5 Perspectives on home socialisation ...... 137
5.1. Introduction ...... 137
5.2. Reasons for coming to Australia ...... 138
5.2.1. Living conditions in the Philippines ...... 138
5.2.2. Influence of significant others ...... 140
5.2.3. Image of Australia ...... 143
5.3. Interaction in the home ...... 147
5.3.1. Relationship with parents and siblings ...... 148
5.3.1.1. The parents of the participants ...... 151
5.3.1.2. The siblings ...... 155
5.3.2. Language use at home ...... 160
5.3.3. Socialisation through food and mealtime activity ...... 164
5.3.4. Routines, responsibilities, and rules ...... 171
5.3.5. Religious engagement ...... 175
5.3.6. Vacations, shopping, and other leisure activities ...... 177
5.4. Conclusion ...... 181
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Chapter 6 Perspectives on school socialisation ...... 183
6.1. Introduction ...... 183
6.2. Schooling in the Philippines ...... 184
6.2.1. Perspectives on the physical characteristics of the school ...... 185
6.2.2. Perspectives on school work and related activities ...... 187
6.2.3. Perspectives on teachers in the Philippines ...... 190
6.2.4. Perspectives on their classmates in the Philippines ...... 191
6.3. Experiences in South Australian schools ...... 193
6.3.1. Daily preparation for school and related routines ...... 194
6.3.2. Perspectives on the school’s physical environment and resources .... 197
6.3.3. Perspectives on school work and other related activities ...... 199
6.3.3.1. Learning the English language ...... 199
6.3.3.2. Subject preferences and their pedagogical features ...... 200
6.3.3.3. Involvement in co-curricular activities ...... 206
6.3.4. Perspectives on teachers ...... 208
6.3.4.1. Dispositional ...... 208
6.3.4.2. Pedagogical ...... 210
6.3.4.3. Disciplinary ...... 211
6.3.5. Perspectives on peers at school ...... 215
6.3.5.1. Characteristics of friends ...... 216
6.3.5.2. Activities with friends ...... 220
6.4. Conclusion ...... 224
Chapter 7 Perspectives on media socialisation ...... 227
7.1. Introduction ...... 227
7.2. Perspectives on television viewing ...... 229
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7.2.1. Learning about the Philippines through Filipino programs ...... 229
7.2.2. Learning from English-language television programs ...... 232
7.2.3. Learning consumerism through television ...... 234
7.2.4. Learning history and general information ...... 235
7.2.5. Learning about careers through television ...... 236
7.2.6. Parental regulation of television ...... 237
7.3. Perspectives on computers and the internet ...... 240
7.3.1. Connecting with significant others ...... 240
7.3.2. Learning to research and access information...... 244
7.3.3. Learning through online applications for entertainment ...... 247
7.3.4. Coping with parental and school regulation of internet use ...... 247
7.4. Perspectives on video and online gaming...... 250
7.5. Conclusion ...... 253
Chapter 8 Summary and conclusion ...... 255
8.1. Theoretical and methodological underpinnings ...... 255
8.2. Substantive propositions and theoretical implications ...... 258
8.2.1. Making sense of migration and resettlement ...... 258
8.2.2. Home socialisation to familial values and Filipino culture ...... 259
8.2.3. School socialisation experiences ...... 263
8.2.4. Peer socialisation experiences ...... 265
8.2.5. Socialisation experiences from media ...... 266
8.3. Recommendations for future research ...... 270
Appendices ...... 272
A. Interview schedule ...... 272
B. Ethics protocol documents ...... 273
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C. Addressing trustworthiness ...... 282
Bibliography ...... 283
List of tables and figures
Tables
Table 2.1 Philippine-born population in Australia ...... 38
Table 2.2 Top 10 nationalities conferred with Australian citizenship, 2011–2012 ...... 43
Table 2.3 Top 10 countries of origin of children in immigrant families in Australia ...... 53
Table 4.1 Selected characteristics of the participants ...... 119
Table 5.1 Selected family characteristics ...... 149
Table 5.2 Languages spoken at home ...... 161
Table 6.1 Favourite subjects of the participants ...... 202
Table 7.1 Ownership of media-related technology ...... 228
Figures
Figure 3.1 Socialisation contexts of children of Filipino immigrants ...... 99
Figure 4.1 Gaining access to participants through gatekeepers ...... 120
Figure 4.2 The interview process ...... 122
Figure 4.3 The research process ...... 132
Figure 4.4 The study on Filipino children’s perspectives ...... 135
Figure 5.1 Participants and their siblings ...... 156
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Abstract
This thesis contributes to the understanding of socialisation of children by examining the perspectives of primary school children of Filipino immigrants in South
Australia on their experiences at home, in school, with peers, and with media. Philippine- born children, aged 8-12, were interviewed on how they learnt the skills, attitudes, and values that enabled them to cope with their new environment.
Research on the socialisation experiences of primary school children of immigrants is scarce. What there is focuses on economic status and academic success.
Little is known about children’s perspectives and adaptive strategies following immigration.
This thesis fills a research gap in the complexity of children’s experiences by investigating the perspectives of thirty primary school children of Filipino immigrants living in South
Australia.
A qualitative methodological approach grounded the children’s perspectives in symbolic interactionism (SI). Recognising the development of children’s selves through socialisation, SI sees children as active participants in human group life. Through interaction, children define their situations, take perspectives, and adjust their behaviour in line with that of others.
The study concludes by generating substantive propositions regarding the socialisation experiences of children of Filipino immigrants. These support formal theoretical implications on selves, socialisation, perspective-taking, and coping. The study recommends further research into the experiences of the same children when they commence high school. A similarly designed study could be utilised for Australian-born primary school children of Filipino immigrants.
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Declaration
I certify that this work contains no material which has been accepted for the award of any other degree or diploma in my name, in any university or other tertiary institution and, to the best of my knowledge and belief, contains no material previously published or written by another person, except where due reference has been made in the text. In addition, I certify that no part of this work will, in the future, be used in a submission in my name, for any other degree or diploma in any university or other tertiary institution without the prior approval of the University of Adelaide and where applicable, any partner institution responsible for the joint-award of this degree.
I give consent to this copy of my thesis when deposited in the University Library, being made available for loan and photocopying, subject to the provisions of the Copyright
Act 1968.
I also give permission for the digital version of my thesis to be made available on the web, via the University’s digital research repository, the Library Search and also through web search engines, unless permission has been granted by the University to restrict access for a period of time.
Marizon Guillermo Yu
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Acknowledgements
It gives me great pleasure to acknowledge the following people, without whom, this
PhD journey would not have been realised.
I am forever indebted to my supervisors, Dr Anthony Potts and Dr Nina Maadad, who provided excellent support, guidance, feedback, and encouragement throughout the process.
I am grateful to the staff members of the School of Education under the leadership of Dr Tanya Aspland (former Head of School), Dr Jan Keightly (current Head of School),
Dr Igusti Darmawan and Dr Andrew Hope (Postgraduate Coordinators) for their administrative support.
I am truly thankful to my fellow Filipinos in Adelaide, Dr Francis Ben, Ms Miriam
Cocking, Dr Rey Juanta, and Ms Mary Jean Hallam for the invaluable referral to the Filipino community.
My heartfelt thanks go to Aysha Abdul Majeed, Judith Thomas, and my fellow PhD students for the friendship and encouragement.
I am immensely grateful to Dr Meredith Coleman, along with my dear friends and colleagues who wish to remain anonymous, for the critical reading of the manuscript, for the insightful input and helpful suggestions.
I give my heartfelt appreciation to my family for cheering me on.
Finally, I dedicate this to my angels, Nahalina, Malaya, and Mulawin, thank you for the inspiration to pursue this PhD.
It goes without saying that I share the credit of this work with all of the aforementioned individuals, the children in this study and their families; however, I bear sole and full responsibility for any shortcomings of this project.
MGY
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Chapter 1 Introduction
Over the past decade, as increasing numbers of families move from their country of origin to a different country, there has been a growing focus on immigrant children.
Impacts of immigration on children have become the centre of attention in research from various disciplines such as education, sociology, and psychology. Children are often at the heart of the family’s decision whether or not to migrate. The phrases, ‘for the future of our children’ (Adams 2008; Leibfritz, O'Brien, & Dumont 2003) or ‘dreams of a better life’
(Todorova, Suarez-Orozco, & Suarez-Orozco 2008) are often quoted as reasons for immigration. Ironically, children’s views on the decision to move to another country are rarely considered (Adams 2008). Nevertheless, the children bear the consequences of immigration— economic, psychological, and socio-cultural. Becoming a part of a new country is difficult and the challenges immigrant children encounter are complex as they face new family situations, new school environments, as well as new cultures in the receiving or host country.
This study examined the home and school experiences of 30 primary school children of Filipino immigrants in South Australia. Australia (re)presents cultures that may be different from the children’s own cultural orientation. This research developed an understanding of what it is like living and studying in Australia as an immigrant primary school child. Qualitative in design, it focussed on how children of Filipino immigrants have learnt skills, attitudes, and values which have allowed them to navigate their new environment and respond to challenges that have confronted them. The main interest of this study was to examine the perspectives that children of Filipino immigrants hold regarding their home and school experiences in South Australia.
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The participants of this study were children of Filipino immigrants, aged 8–12 years. These Philippine-born immigrant children are considered first generation Filipino immigrants. The term ‘first generation’ is generally applied to immigrants who were born outside Australia (Australian Bureau of Statistics 2012c). The majority of the Filipino children participants had been in Australia for less than five years.
In foregrounding the Filipino immigrant children’s perspectives, this study utilised the socialisation theory identified with the Chicago School of Symbolic Interactionism, which presented the self as socially constructed and viewed children as actors in human group life. Children learnt to see their actions from the perspectives of others, who included family members, teachers, and peers. These people helped them understand how their behaviour affected others, thereby enabling them to adjust their actions based on these responses. This socialisation theory informed the framing of the research problem.
1.1. The research questions and aims
The research examined the home and school experiences of primary school children of Filipino immigrants as they navigated their new environment in South Australia.
It also identified children’s cultural and educational challenges and the coping strategies and adaptive skills they developed in response to these challenges.
The study set out to answer these questions which related to both Philippine and
Australian contexts:
(1) What are the experiences of children of Filipino immigrants at home?
(2) What are their experiences at school?
(3) What are their experiences with media?
(4) What cultural and educational challenges do they face?
(5) How do they cope with these challenges?
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By following ethical protocols and procedures in which informed consent and assent were secured, the researcher ensured the anonymity of participants and the confidentiality of their responses. The participants were a group of 30 children of Filipino immigrants aged 8-12 years. Each of these children participated in semi-structured and in- depth interview that lasted for approximately one hour.
The participants for this study were mainly accessed through the social networks that exist within the local Filipino migrant community. Filipinos normally build social networks and it is relatively easy for Filipinos to find other Filipinos in the community. Some familiar places where Filipinos congregated through these networks in South Australia were the churches, the Filipino ethnic school, the Filipino/Asian grocery store, and the
Filipino-Australian websites. A Filipino radio program on a multicultural radio station in
Adelaide (5EBI 103.1 FM) managed by a Filipino consular representative was also an important point of contact for accessing Filipino children. The networks and contacts of
Filipino students and lecturers in the University of Adelaide were also utilised. Likewise, help from Filipino friends, neighbours, and acquaintances was also sought to gain access to some of the interviewees. This network of ‘knowledgeable people’, referred to as people who know people by Cohen, Manion, and Morrison (2011), helped identify the participants of the study. These individuals provided contacts for possible participants of the study and made necessary recommendations to the parents of the children. A more definitive explanation of this method of accessing participants of the study is found in Chapter 4.
One way of analysing children’s perspectives on their experiences is through interpretive paradigms. Contrary to the normative models which are concerned with the objective study of human behaviour, interpretive paradigms are more concerned with the individual and the subjective world of human experience (Cohen, Manion, & Morrison
2011). Interpretivists argue that experiences and challenges can best be described,
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explained, and understood from the point-of-view of the persons involved, who in this particular study are Filipino immigrant children themselves. In line with the interpretive paradigm, symbolic interactionism is one theoretical framework which analyses interactions in daily life and the experiences of individuals. Symbolic interactionist theory examines how individuals form concepts of selves and identities through social interaction (Serpe &
Stryker 2011; Mead 1934), how individuals learn about and internalise culture through socialisation (Bush & Peterson 2013; Van de Walle 2011; Berger & Luckmann 1966; Mead
1934), and how individuals develop adaptive skills and coping strategies through socialisation (Woods 2012a; Erickson 2004; Pollard 1982). The symbolic interactionist framework sees perspectives as ‘frameworks through which people make sense of the world’ (Woods 1983, p. 7).
In this study, the child is acknowledged as being the subject of his or her own world and identifies this peculiar world through interactions and takes on perspectives through socialisation with family, peers, the media, school, and the community. The home, school, peers, and the media are specifically addressed in this study as contexts of socialisation for children.
A key aim of the study was to see how children of Filipino immigrants were socialised in the home and how they bring these socialisation experiences to school and interactions with peers. The home is where children initially learn about themselves, their identities, parental cultures, values, skills, and attitudes. As primary agents of socialisation, the family members serve as the children’s significant others (Mead 1934). Symbolic interaction theory sees the family as the context of primary socialisation or socialisation with significant others.
The school is where the Filipino immigrant children undergo secondary socialisation. They learn more about themselves, their identities, and a range of new
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values and attitudes found in the school environment. The school is also a source of peers for the children and as such peer socialisation occurs in school. As a context of socialisation, teachers, classmates, and other school officials are referred to as generalised others (Mead 1934) and agents of secondary socialisation for children.
Symbolic interactionism views the schools of the immigrant children as contexts for socialisation with generalised others.
Many societies in the world today are characterised as increasingly structured around technology. Thompson (1995) describes the culture of the advanced Western countries as ‘highly mediatized’. Today’s most advanced societies, even some urbanised areas of developing economies, are equipped with media technology that provide children with an array of entertainment and educational experiences. Cable television, computers, mobile phones, digital recorders or video cameras, gaming consoles, electronic gadgets for entertainment, information, and communication, among other technological equipment, are instrumental in the advancement of the Information Age and the rapid rise of what Castells
(2000) describes as the network society. The media, which includes the internet or new media, has become an integral part of the lives of this generation, and thus provides considerable socialisation experiences for children. Children’s media activities include television viewing which has been identified as the most common activity of children, followed by computer use and gaming (Australian Institute of Family Studies 2012;
Rideout, Foehr, & Roberts 2010).
For Castells (2000), the network society suggests interconnectedness not only of technological systems but also of individuals, groups, and society. Some of the key elements of networks that he identified are globalisation, power relationships, and the role of media. These are seen as responsible for transforming and reshaping interactions and the structure of society. The media is influential in people’s lives. However, for Castells
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(2010a), media may not be a power-holder, in that it has the capacity to impose behavior, but rather it is a space for the real powers behind it, and these are ‘the networks of information exchange and symbol manipulation, which relate social actors, institutions, and cultural movements, through icons, spokespersons, and intellectual amplifiers’ (Castells
2010a, p. 379).
These contexts of socialisation— home, school, peers, and media— are spaces and places where the immigrant child encounters educational and cultural challenges.
Being raised by migrant parents in a new country, the immigrant children are ‘living in two worlds’ as argued by Falicov (2012, p. 297) or may be living in and balancing at least two worlds. The idea of living and dealing with at least two possibly disparate cultures is challenging for children and has implications for their ability to adapt in the new environment.
1.2. Theoretical framework and methodology: overview and justification
Symbolic interactionism of the Chicago School underpinned this study on children of Filipino immigrants in South Australia. Symbolic interactionism sees the selves of children as socially constructed. Socialisation is an enduring process of how people learn to act, think, and feel from the perspective of others. The self presents itself in situations and acts by taking the others’ responses into account.
The self, therefore, is a product of social interaction. Social interaction is what happens when at least two individuals encounter each other. One individual acts in part while adjusting to what the other individual does. Hence, it is mutual social action that involves communication and interpretation of one another’s action (Blumer 1969; Mead
1934). Social interaction allows for socialisation to take place as well as perspective-taking.
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Socialisation is a lifelong process of social interaction and experiences where individuals discover and develop their selves and their identities, learn patterns of culture, and conform to social norms. Socialisation occurs when a person takes on the perspective of others which informs his or her behaviour and responses in situations. This perspective, which is a person’s understanding and interpretation of reality, is influenced by culture.
Also known as a shared perspective, culture consists of rules, beliefs, values, and practices that arise from social interaction, and become taken-for-granted realities that are utilised for socialisation of people to groups and organisations. Children’s realities within themselves or outside of themselves may be understood through culture.
The perspectives of the Filipino immigrant children arose from their interaction with their families, peers, schools, media, and other socialising agents. These agents represented cultures with sets of assumptions, values, symbols, and ideas that socialised children to enable them to define their situations, understand their reality, appreciate their attributes and capacities, and act accordingly.
Even if reality is created through interaction with others and where consensus about the same reality might occur, no two individuals think alike. The ability of one individual to think, feel, and talk to himself or herself creates differences in the way each individual sees and interprets reality. Children’s experiences, realities, and interpretations may be different from or incompatible with how adults understand these experiences, realities, and interpretations, even when children are engaged in taking others’ perspectives. Children are capable of, if not experts at, defining their situations, which enable them to form their own perspectives.
Following ethical protocols, interviews (both in-depth and semi-structured) were conducted with 30 Filipino immigrant students, aged 8-12 who were at primary school in
South Australia. Primary education covers the period from reception (aged 5-6) to Year 7
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(aged 12-13). Through the interviews, they shared their experiences of migrating to and living in Australia. They were asked questions about their living conditions in the
Philippines, the reasons why they came to Australia, their circumstances in the home, and situations that they encountered when they went to school in South Australia.
Throughout the research, concepts central to symbolic interactionist theory such as the self, others, socialisation, perspectives, and coping (discussed further in Chapter 3) guided the identification of major themes for analysis of the immigrant children’s perspectives on their home, peers, school, and media experiences, cultural and educational challenges, and subsequent responses to challenges.
1.3. Self-reflection
My interest in this research reflected the various roles that pertain to my multiple selves. As an educator, I am concerned with how socialisation influences the adjustment of Filipino immigrants to their new situations and settings, particularly the children. Filipino immigrants who deal with at least two disparate cultures may find themselves confronting different educational systems; navigating between their original cultural orientation and their new social environment; balancing familial duties with individual achievement and pursuits; or negotiating potentially conflicting values, beliefs, practices, and roles.
As a mother of three children, two of whom were enrolled in South Australian schools (at the time of this research), I was concerned with their adjustment to the new school culture and a new school system. I imagined that challenges possibly brought about by their new school environment would be quite different from those they experienced in the Philippines. For example, problems relating to teachers and classmates, or adjusting to the demands of new lessons, different ways of learning, and other school activities could be encountered. Such difficulties, regardless of the level of concern to the student, might
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influence the motivation to go to school, to socialise, or pursue other academic or non- academic activities.
This study may be considered as research from the inside (Sikes & Potts 2008;
Merton 1972). As it was conducted by a member of the Filipino community in South
Australia, I can be identified as an insider in this research. However, I also consider myself as an outsider in this study by virtue of certain attributes that I do not share with many of the participants such as my socio-economic backgrounds, education, and social roles.
Adler (2004), in her view of insider-outsider research argues:
Ethnographers have meticulously studied groups from the “outside,” hoping to interpret what is on the “inside,” through the voices of informants. But why are there such dichotomies, when, in reality, researchers are insiders in some contexts and outsiders in other situations? (Adler 2004, p. 107)
As an insider, there are some advantages in researching the children of Filipino immigrants. Interviewing one’s own cultural community afforded me a degree of social propinquity to the participants that gave me privileges in terms of access. My understanding of the participants’ cultures enabled me to follow the children’s explanations about their experiences. This study touched on values and perspectives that were similar to my own. The similarities in the cultural orientation of the participants and myself allowed me to understand and interpret them. Being an insider gave me easy access to the children informants and the difficulties of researching this group was moderated by my understanding of the Filipino culture, especially the language. In some ways, I was familiar with the children participants because I shared some aspects of their culture and language.
This understanding allowed me to encourage sharing of honest feelings and straightforward responses to the interview questions. It also allowed me to probe deeper into their responses and empathise with personal difficulties as necessary. As a Filipino researcher, I was aware of my privileges in this study by virtue of my psychological and cultural affinity to the Filipino community, but these privileges were balanced by the
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obligation to keep their identities anonymous, protect them from potential harm, maintain confidentiality of their responses, and address the power dynamics between adult- researcher and child-informant.
However, while a cultural understanding of the participants has some advantages, there are also disadvantages such as ethical dilemmas of over rapport and over familiarity, and methodological issues of bias and subjectivity. While rapport suggests trust, reciprocity, and mutuality which could accomplish the collection of information from the participants, the downside of rapport and familiarity could present itself in certain behaviours from the children that could potentially affect the interview and research process. One example was keeping the child attentive long enough to answer as many questions as possible. Another example was how to stop the informant from sharing personal details and experiences that were not relevant to the research. These, however were addressed by interviewing skills that researchers must consider and learn before entering the interview process.
Insiderness is often questioned for contributing to bias and subjectivity of research.
However, qualitative research is not devoid of biases and subjectivities because meaningful knowledge can also be constructed by allowing room for subjective ways of looking at and understanding the world (Mehra 2002; Patton 2002b; Peshkin 1988).
Subjectivity is inherent in this current research since the children’s perspectives on their experiences have been represented. I also acknowledge that the identities of both the participants and myself interacted in this research.
Insiderness also suggests researcher bias in terms of selecting the informants, reporting of information, and analysing the data. Although concern about bias in research is more closely associated with the positivist tradition and quantitative methodology, it is also a concern of qualitative research. However, bias does not make a study less scientific
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or systematic since, in one way or another, researchers influence the research and results
(Lichtman 2010). The strategy I adopted to address the issues of bias in this research was to actively engage in researcher reflexivity. I acknowledged my position as an insider, that is, a member of the Filipino community.
While I cannot assume that the participants and I have exactly the same values and perspectives, the recognition of disparities that relate to age, regional cultures, or other circumstances have allowed me to appreciate the fluidity and complexity of the participants’ group life. I am an outsider to the setting of these children because I have no prior experience with the Australian school system. This enabled me to be vigilant in my role as researcher and an instrument in the study as I analysed and interpreted the information on what the children had to say about their experiences and challenges. As researcher, issues with over-identification and over-rapport with the participants giving rise to bias and subjectivity were set against the need to genuinely and adequately represent their perspectives in this study. The insights of the children of Filipino immigrants on their experiences and challenges in Australian schools and society would enhance our understanding of the Filipino community in Australia.
1.4. Significance and contribution of the study
There were three main motivations for undertaking this research. First, this study would be useful for teachers and school administrators to enhance understanding of primary school children of Filipino immigrants. Children of immigrants could contribute to research by sharing their experiences and challenges as they encounter other children and adults in Australian schools and communities. Children’s perspectives on their thoughts and feelings about these experiences provide useful information for parents and educators.
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This information enables parents and educators to respond to their concerns and needs of immigrant children and to provide them with necessary support.
Second, the results of the study would be useful for researchers in providing information on a particular cohort of children— first generation Filipino immigrant children in South Australian primary schools. The study would contribute to the literature on socialisation experiences of Filipino children in immigrant families in Australia. This research on the home and school experiences of primary school children of Filipino immigrants would give insights to the under-explored research on the circumstances of
Filipino immigrant children, including the children’s responses to challenges that they encountered in a new environment in South Australia.
Lastly, a study informed by symbolic interactionism and qualitative analysis deepens our understanding of the experiences of primary school children of Filipino immigrants living in South Australia. While this present study was on a small and particular cohort of children, its theoretical orientation and method may be applied to other groups of children, whether from a different ethnic background, age level, educational categorisation, or even to immigrant children in other Australian regions or other host countries. Thoughtful and detailed analysis of the immigrant children’s perspectives of selves, socialisation, and coping skills and how these present themselves in the children’s socialisation contexts like the home, the school, and media could generate propositions for further inquiry.
1.5. Limitations
This study was conducted in South Australia. Thirty (30) Filipino immigrant children, aged 8-12, enrolled in South Australian primary schools participated in the study.
Claims about generalisability to the population of Filipino immigrant children in Australia
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were not made. Conclusions about the experiences of the children were limited to the respondents.
The participants of the study were also limited to first generation immigrant children. These children are Philippine-born and most of them had some experience of schooling in the Philippines. Excluded from the study were Australian-born children with
Filipino ethnicity and children of Filipino immigrants with intellectual disabilities, neurological disorders, and mental illnesses.
1.6. Organisation of the thesis
The thesis is organised into eight chapters. This Introduction (Chapter 1) discusses the aims of the research and its significance. Chapter 2 provides an overview of the Filipino culture and a review of relevant literature that situates the Filipino community in multicultural Australia. Related studies on immigrant children in host societies, focussing on the family and school contexts, challenges and adaptation are also discussed. Chapter
3 explains symbolic interactionism as the study’s theoretical underpinning, the rationale for using this framework and the related concepts used in the study for analysis of the participants’ socialisation experiences and challenges. The method of interviewing the 30 participants is explained in Chapter 4. The type of interviews undertaken, the rationale for the styles employed, the process of information gathering, and the subsequent analysis are the principal themes for discussion. Chapters 5, 6, and 7 report the data gathered from the interviews, focussing on the three socialisation contexts of the children— the home, the school, and media. Furthermore, cultural and educational challenges, as well as the responses of the children to these, are also identified and analysed in these chapters.
Conclusions and recommendations for future studies follow in Chapter 8.
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Chapter 2 Review of literature and related studies
2.1. Introduction
An overview of the cultural orientation of Filipinos is intrinsic to gaining some understanding about the perspectives of the children of Filipino immigrants on their home and school experiences in both the Philippines and Australia. This literature review is divided into two main sections— a brief description of the Filipino family touching on aspects of Filipino culture and a historical overview of Filipino migration to Australia (South
Australia).
Culture can be viewed as sets of shared perspectives that people develop through collective activities and creative responses to situations (Pollard 2005). Culture is derived from what people do however it is defined (Blumer 1969). It comprises materials, rules, norms, beliefs, practices, symbols, and values that endure over time and transmit meaning.
These meanings become tacit truths that are likely to be socialised to children from parents, siblings, and significant others. Although culture has been used as a categorising concept to identify children by ethnicities, it does not necessarily translate to cultural experiences that are entirely homogeneous for children in the same ethnic group. Even for children in the same cultural or ethnic group, for example, the Filipino children in this study, experiences vary. Culture is dynamic and continues to evolve (Mead 1934) and individuals’ cultural experiences are complex. While taking these into account, culture still provides some backdrop for children’s experiences that helps in our understanding of their perspectives.
The first section provides background information on the family in Filipino culture.
It aims to develop understanding about primary school students, who are children of
Filipino immigrants, by examining aspects of Philippine culture. This section highlights common values and other aspects of Filipino culture that most of the children in this study
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and their families share. Values on family and children, education, relationships with others, food, and religion are discussed. Since most of the children participants in the study had experienced some years of schooling in the Philippines, a brief discussion of schooling in the Philippines provides some basis for comparison of the children’s school experiences in Australia.
The second section of this chapter situates Filipino migrants in Australia in general by giving a brief history of Filipino migration to Australia. This is presented as part of the discussion about multicultural Australia and Australian values in schools to explain the cultural and social environment that the children of Filipino immigrants navigate. A summary of Australian curriculum in the primary years also provides a basis for informed comparison between the Australian and Philippine school cultures. The section ends with a description of the general circumstances of children of Filipino immigrants in Australia based on a study conducted by the United Nations Children’s Fund.
2.2. The ethos of the Filipino
Understanding Filipinos and their cultures requires some knowledge of the history of the Philippines and its people. It needs to be clarified, however, that the term
‘Philippines’ came about in 1543 when a Spanish explorer, Ruy Lopez de Villalobos, named the islands (Samar and Leyte) Las Islas Felipinas (Islands of the Philippines) in honour of Felipe II, the son of the King Carlos I of Spain. Felipe II was crowned King of
Spain in 1554 and the Philippine Islands were colonised in 1565 (Agoncillo & Guerrero
1974). The name Philippines was applied to the whole archipelago soon after colonisation.
For purposes of discussion, the inhabitants of pre-colonial Philippines or the people of the archipelago will be referred to as indigenous Filipinos. In the subsequent
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section it will be explained how the term ‘Filipino’ later applied to the people of the
Philippines.
The evolution of Filipino culture may be traced back to its pre-colonial history. The indigenous populations of the Philippine archipelago, particularly in Luzon and Visayas, were organised in autonomous states called barangays, whose powers extended beyond kinship. The archipelago had clear territories, sovereignty, sets of customary laws, a common heritage founded on families, and a government that legitimised group decisions and laws (Jocano 1998a). In the islands of Sulu in Mindanao, a political system based on the Muslim sultanate developed from the time that the Islamic religion was introduced by
Arab traders toward the end of the 14th century (Abubakar 2005). Most indigenous
Filipinos were involved in a range of economic activities like farming, boat-building, metalworking, textile and weaving, and domestic and foreign trade. Some inhabitants of the Philippine islands traded with other Asian maritime cultures such as those coming from the Malay Peninsula, Borneo, Indonesian islands of Sulawesi, Java, and Sumatra, Siam or
Thailand, China, Arabia, and South Asia (Jocano 1998a; Scott 1994). Direct and indirect contacts with these cultures contributed to vibrant inter-island trade and commerce in the
Philippine archipelago and the development of the indigenous Filipinos’ tastes for the traders’ wares like porcelain, toys, weapons, and food. The indigenous Filipinos, in addition, had a variety of languages, systems of writing, art, music, and religion. They also had a dynamic social life focussed on child-rearing practices, marriage, death, and burial rites. Furthermore, they also had megalithic structures like the Rice Terraces of the
Philippine Cordilleras in Luzon which is now considered by the United Nations Educational,
Scientific and Cultural Organization as a World Heritage Site (UNESCO 2013).
The history of the Philippines involves a long record of colonisation from two sources. Spain ruled the Philippines for more than 300 years (1521–1898) and the United
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States for almost 50 years (1898–1946). The dominant contributions of Spain to Philippine culture were Catholic Christianity, the Spanish language, Spanish and European tastes in food, fashion and the arts, and the European feudalistic tradition of land ownership. The
Americans, on the other hand, introduced Protestant Christianity, American English,
American tastes in food and fashion, the arts, sports, free public education, American values, and liberal democracy under a presidential form of government. As a former colony of the United States, Filipinos are familiar with the American culture and many Filipinos know English. These colonial experiences according to Jocano (1998a) provided external overlays to the indigenous Filipino cultural traditions.
For these reasons, Philippine culture may be characterised as a hybrid culture that resulted from the Philippines’ interaction with other Asian cultures through trade and with the colonisers, Spain and the United States. These foreign influences were, however, modified and transformed to suit the local conditions of the Filipinos. One example is the
Filipino food culture which Fernandez (1988, p. 220) described figuratively as an ‘ingesting culture’, where Filipino food is a destination of foreign cultural influences and the process of indigenisation has more of a symbolic significance rather than the sources of influence.
For example, imagine spaghetti, which is famous Italian pasta dish, to be sweet with a slight punch of chili. Jollibee, a famous hamburger chain in the Philippines, popularised and ‘indigenised’ this spaghetti that many Filipinos love.
According to Jocano (1998a), the cultures of the early inhabitants of the Philippine archipelago were enriched through these early contacts with foreign cultures. Similarly,
Filipino cultures at the time of and after the colonial period were also enriched by the colonisers, suggesting hybridisation. Tan (2007) argues:
Rather than look for a non-existent “pure” pre-colonial Filipino culture, we should marvel at what we have, recognizing that all cultures are the result of interactions of people, in different situations and circumstances. Today Filipino culture remains in flux, many of the changes occurring outside, as millions of Filipino work and live overseas, borrowing some of the practices of their host countries
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and bringing them home, modified and transformed, ready to be absorbed into local culture… All cultures are hybrids and it can be fascinating unravelling all the sources and processes involved in this hybridization. Once we recognize that we are all mestizo, the product of more than one culture, we might better appreciate ourselves— and humanity (Tan 2007, p. 5).
This research does not present a quintessential Filipino culture since Philippine cultures remain in a state of flux. For the purpose of this research however, the following aspects of Philippine culture are discussed to provide some cultural indicators that may
(re)present the Filipino. Some of these aspects of Philippine culture appear in the study particularly in terms of socialisation processes that children of Filipino immigrants experience in the home, even if many of these may not be present in all the socialisation experiences of all the children.
The term ‘Filipino’ was originally used by the Spanish colonialists to refer to
Spaniards born in the colony (the Philippines). The term was later claimed by the reformist and revolutionary movements of the late 18th century Philippines as a means of national identification (Constantino 1969). After independence from the Spanish colonisers, the term ‘Filipino’ collectively identified people from the Philippines. Today, it can refer to a legal identity, as in Filipino citizenship defined by Article IV of the 1987 Philippine
Constitution. It can also be a cultural identity, as in being or feeling Filipino. Tan (2013) clarifies that an individual ‘can be a Filipino citizen and yet have little sense of being
Filipino, and one can be a non-Filipino citizen and yet be Filipino in outlook’ (para 2).
The Philippines is a culturally diverse country with approximately 170 ethno- linguistic groups. Filipinos have strong ethnic affinities and many prefer to be identified by their provincial or regional origin such as, Tagalogs, Cebuanos or Visayans, Ilonggos,
Ilocanos, Bicolanos, Pampangueños, Zamboangueños, Maguindanaons, Tausugs, Sama, and many others. These groups are characterised by their own languages, of which some
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have their own dialects. Each group has its unique culture and history which contribute to the diversity of the people of the Philippines.
Regional differences in the Philippines are intensified by the languages of its peoples. There are more than 170 languages in the Philippines (Paul, Simons, & Fennig
2013). Tagalog is the most widely spoken language in the Philippines and is the first language of nearly a quarter of the Philippine population, from Manila and its surrounding regions. Filipino is the standardised form of Tagalog. It has become the country’s official language along with English which is the preferred language in many businesses and educational institutions in the Philippines (GlobalEnglish 2012; Thompson 2003). Through the Philippine government’s bilingual education policy, schools require the teaching of
Filipino and English from Kindergarten until Year 12. These two languages are used as mediums of instruction in some subject areas.
2.2.1. Values on family
Filipinos widely regard the family as a basic unit of their kinship system. A sense of kinship and family is one of the strongly held values of Filipinos. The Filipino notion of familial kinship is based on biology and culture (Jocano 1998b). It is biological through relationships by blood and descent. It is cultural by virtue of affinity, religion, legal (non- legal) adoptive practices, and other rituals and customs. The Filipinos value family relations, family loyalty, and family tradition (Root 2005; Halagao 2004; Hennessy 2004;
Jocano 2000). In a single household, extended families are commonplace. It is not unusual to find relatives like grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins living with a nuclear family composed of the parent(s) and children (child).
Sometimes, there are other members of the household who are considered as members of the family even without any direct blood relation to any of the family members.
These are referred to by Jocano (1998b) as quasi-relatives who may be related by affinity
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or by ritual. Relatives by affinity may include, relatives of grandparents, aunts, uncles, or cousins from either their paternal or maternal line. Relatives by ritual are structured by relationships through religious rites such as, baptism, confirmation, or marriage sponsorship. Another form of ritual relationship includes compadrazgo relations. In the case of the baptism of a child, the parents and godparents (sponsors) become compadres
(male coparent) or comadres (female coparent). The baptised child calls the godparents ninong (male godparent) or ninang (godmother). Adoption is another means by which people become part of a kin group. Adoption follows a legal process but sometimes people prefer a more traditional and non-legal means of including orphaned or abandoned children in the family. There are times when people become incorporated into a family system through employment, as in the case of housemaids, nannies, family drivers, or houseboys.
It is customary in many Filipino families to treat employees working in their households as quasi-relatives.
Respect is one of the foundations of Filipino familial (and community) kinship ties.
A Filipino is expected to learn the value of respect as fundamental in all situations from childhood. One of the ways by which parents teach and model the value of respect is through the use of expressions (words) that indicate deference, like the formal use of po and opo by the Tagalogs when conversing with parents, older relatives, or people in authority. These expressions are used between adults as well to model the value of respect to children. Other Filipino languages have no equivalent terms for po and opo. In addressing older people by their position in the family or status in society, children use alternative formal expressions of respect. Likewise, parents, relatives, elders, and people of authority are addressed as ‘mother’ or ‘father’, ‘auntie’ or ‘uncle’ , ‘big brother’ or ‘big sister’, ‘grandfather’ or ‘grandmother’, ‘godfather’ or ‘godmother’, and ‘sir’ or ‘madam’ either
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in English or their equivalent in Filipino languages. It is very rare that a Filipino child would address someone older by their first name.
Another outward form of respect shown by younger Filipinos to their elders is the act of putting the elder’s posterior part of the hand on the forehead of the younger individual. This is known as mano or pagmamano which has been practised since the
Spanish colonial period. Mano in Spanish means hand; hence the act of putting an elder’s hand on the forehead indicates deference in seeking the elder’s blessing. Colloquially, the act has been termed as ‘a blessing’ especially by followers of Catholicism and some
Christian religions. A variant of this act is kissing the posterior part of the hand of the elder or patron. Catholic priests would extend their hand to the parishioners. The parishioners would either kiss the priest’s hand or put it on their forehead. Children in most Filipino households, especially those who follow Catholicism or Christianity are expected to exhibit this behaviour. They are deemed either disrespectful or even rude if they fail to do so, and will be disciplined by parents, older siblings, and relatives.
The familial kinship of Filipinos constitutes a network of relationships that affects the social action, value-orientation, and moral judgments of its members. Filipino families are expected to help family members who are in need. When able, family members contribute money, services, and other forms of assistance when a kinsman is in economic crisis. The denial of assistance is regarded as offensive to the moral standards of familial kinship (Jocano 1998b). This sense of kinship is also extended to non-family members as discussed later in the section entitled ‘values on relationships with others’.
2.2.1.1. Children in Filipino families
A Filipino family is often described as child-centric. Children are valued for the affection and happiness they bring to the family. They are considered as gifts from God
(Bulatao in Bautista, Roldan, & Garces-Bacsal 2001; Jocano 1998b). Parents view their
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children as extensions of themselves. Children in Filipino families are seen as bearers of the family’s name, history, and culture. Ideally, children are cared for and nurtured by parents and significant others. They are expected to respect and obey their parents and elders, and use proper kinship terms. Most children are rewarded for obedience and good behavior; otherwise, they are pinched, scolded, reprimanded, and punished as a means of disciplining them.
Countless Filipino children are not spared from verbal reprimands and corporal punishment as ways of disciplining them (Global Initiative to End All Corporal Punishment of Children 2012; Cabilles & Francisco 2008; Bautista, Roldan, & Garces-Bacsal 2001).
Spanking is one form of discipline that is common in many Filipino families. Corporal punishment in the home is not fully prohibited in the Philippines, as the country recognises the rights of parents to discipline their children despite laws that criminalise abuse and exploitation of children, for example, Republic Act 7610, or the Special Protection of
Children against Child Abuse, Exploitation and Discrimination Act, the Revised Penal Code
(Republic Act 3815), the Child and Youth Welfare Code (Presidential Decree 603) and the
Family Code of the Philippines (Executive Order 209). The Child and Youth Welfare Code acknowledges the right of parents ‘to discipline the child as may be necessary for the formation of his good character’ (The Child and Youth Welfare Code 1974, Article 45).
Section 2 of the Rules and Regulations on the Reporting and Investigation of Child Abuse
Cases state that:
Discipline administered by a parent or legal guardian to a child does not constitute cruelty provided it is reasonable in manner and moderate in degree and does not constitute physical or psychological injury as defined herein (Global Initiative to End All Corporal Punishment of Children 2012, p. 1).
To date, there is a growing advocacy against corporal punishment of children, be it in homes, schools, and other institutions in the Philippines. A bill pending in the Philippine
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Senate (at the time of this writing), HB 6699 or Anti-corporal Punishment Act of 2009 aims to criminalise corporal punishment in the home.
Parents exercise their authority by disciplining children and by promoting harmony and cooperation among the members of the family. Filipino children and their siblings are expected to cooperate with each other, to get along with each other, to treat each other with respect, and to share responsibilities in the home by doing household chores or by assisting parents on the farms or in particular trades (carpentry, plumbing, craftsmanship, and the like). Many families practise division of labor, which according to Jocano (1998b) is one cultural attribute of Filipino family or community life. Parents work to provide for the family. Some mothers take on careers to provide income for the family. There are mothers
(and fathers) who choose to stay home and take care of the children. Some parents (either the mother or the father) even work outside the Philippines to be able to send their children to private schools which are often viewed as providing higher quality education compared with public schools. Most children are expected to go to school and help with household chores. Some common household chores done by children (especially the older ones) are washing dishes, preparing meals or helping in food preparation, washing clothes, cleaning certain areas of the house, and sweeping the floor. Often, the eldest son or daughter takes on a leadership role among the siblings. When the parents are absent, the eldest son or daughter acts in loco parentis to younger siblings. The eldest sibling also disciplines the younger ones in the absence of parents. Performing household chores and assisting parents on farms or in trades are particularly common in families that have limited resources to hire domestic workers such as housemaids, nannies, family drivers, gardeners, and the like.
A few children enjoy the privilege of having household helpers. Helpers accompany younger children to and from school. In the Philippines less than 10% of the
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total number of households in the country hire domestic workers (International Labour
Office 2010). A high concentration of domestic workers is seen in the National Capital
Region (Metro Manila) and its adjacent region, the CALABARZON (Region IVA). Often, helpers multitask by performing various duties in the house which are otherwise done by the family members. They clean, do the laundry and ironing, shop for groceries, cook, and take care of the children.
Children in many Filipino families are also seen as assets, investments, and income-providers for the future, when parents are unable to provide for the family due to old age or disability (Rosario-Braid, Tuazon, & Lopez 2011; Parrenas 2006; Jocano
1998b). It is important that children receive a good education for this reason. However, there are instances where, as soon as the children are able, they support their families with their economic contribution. Child labour is common in the Philippines. This happens in many low-income Filipino families where some children are already contributing to the family’s needs through menial jobs (International Labour Organization 2012). These children still manage to go to school but they face challenges such as poor health and nutrition which greatly affects their ability to learn.
Many Filipinos take their familial duties seriously. As soon as an older sibling gets a job, they are expected to look after their younger siblings by paying for the school expenses of younger siblings. Some children opt to live with aged parents even when these children have families of their own. For some Filipinos, sending their aged parents to nursing homes is unacceptable and often siblings take turns in caring for their aged parents through financial support or other services.
In sum, children are highly valued in Philippine cultures for at least three reasons— they bring joy to the family, they are important contributors to household labour, and they are expected to fulfill filial duties when they reach an appropriate age. Parental authority is
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enforced in most Filipino families through discipline and promotion of harmony, cooperation, and economic interdependence.
2.2.2. Values on relationships with others
Related to familial values and sense of kinship is the Filipino value of empathy towards others as demonstrated by an involved interaction with others, which is known as pakikipagkapwa in Filipino (Mendoza & Perkinson 2003; Jocano 2000; Enriquez 1986).
This value teaches Filipino children to treat people as ‘one of us’ and not as an outsider
(Pe-Pua & Protacio-Marcelino 2000). Consistent with the interactionist view, kapwa may be explained as the self in others and the others in the self. This idea allows the Filipino to forge a sense of unity with fellow Filipinos whether in the Philippines or somewhere else in the world. This sense of unity among Filipinos can be seen in the way Filipinos selectively appropriate their identities, especially with well-known Filipinos, for example, cinema celebrities, television personalities, musical artists, sporting identities, philanthropists, educators, scientists, and statesmen.
A cultural value that relates to the Filipino’s act of helping others without expecting anything in return is called, bayanihan (Halagao 2004; Bankoff 2002; Jocano 1999). This cultural value has been symbolised by a group of people carrying a nipa hut on their shoulders. The nipa hut is an iconic Filipino house that is made of bamboo and palm leaves. In early Philippine society, when a certain family needed to relocate, a group of men would carry the family’s house to the new location. A more modern application of this
Filipino value is when people help each other during or after events of calamities and disasters; hence, the term, bayanihan. This value is rooted in the Filipinos’ sense of kinship with kith and kin. Filipinos, who are not related by blood, may even refer to each other as brothers and sisters or kapatid. As such Filipinos, despite their differences have a strong sense of community. Jocano (2000) explains that ‘to each his or her own’ or individualism
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(kanya-kanya) is not approved in Philippine society, and ‘groupism’ is seen as essentially attached to kinship and peer relationships. This value is either taught directly by Filipino parents, elders, and teachers to Filipino children or it is caught by the children themselves through what they see from the adults and other children.
Similarly, Filipinos value group loyalty which they refer to as pakikisama (Pe-Pua
& Protacio-Marcelino 2000; Enriquez 1986). This cultural value is important in maintaining social harmony. Group loyalty goes awry when individuals in the group do negative things in the name of loyalty, such as, a group of youngsters forming a gang that engages in anti- social behaviours like bullying or truancy.
Moreover, maintaining a ‘smooth interpersonal relationship’ seems to be a cultural value of Filipinos that is perceived to be a surface value and simplistic version of pakikipagkapwa and pakikisama (Mendoza & Perkinson 2003). Sometimes, Filipinos are unwilling to say ‘no’ just to maintain a smooth interpersonal relationship with others. For most Filipinos, ‘yes’ is recognised as meaning different things, as well as the affirmative
(Halagao 2004; McKee 2003). It can also mean ‘I am afraid to be negative by saying no’,
‘maybe’, ‘perhaps next time or later’, or ‘I will try but no promises.’ Perhaps this is one of the reasons why children often get mixed signals from adults. From constant socialisation with adults who struggle to keep ‘yes’ as yes and ‘no’ as no, children might take this behaviour with them to adulthood. Jocano (2000) explains that with this behaviour,
Filipinos are a sensitive people; they reason with their hearts not with their minds. Filipinos empathise with those who are in need. Filipinos take extra care not to hurt others’ feelings.
Another cultural value of the Filipinos is their sense of propriety or hiya (Pe-Pua &
Protacio-Marcelino 2000). Most Filipinos are careful not to ‘lose face’ in their dealings with other people. They try to avoid causing embarrassment to themselves and to others. This group-oriented norm which Jocano (2000) describes as ‘emotionally charged’ is common
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among Filipino cultures. Filipinos interact with kinsmen, neighbours, and peers all their lives, thus they take seriously the preservation of harmony. This is the manner by which
Filipinos live up to acceptable social behaviour. They take seriously positive self-image or amor propio, coupled with a sense of having a word of honour or palabra de honor, and sense of honour or delicadeza. Related to this value is the way Filipinos take a debt of gratitude seriously. A good deed done to someone never goes unreciprocated lest someone be branded as having no shame, and thus losing face in the family or community.
Filipino children are taught to behave in such a way that they will not be referred to as having ‘no shame.’ Expressing thankfulness at all times is also observed as an outward gesture of debt of gratitude or utang na loob or reciprocal obligations and sense of gratitude (Bankoff 2002; Jocano 2000).
However, there are occasions when smooth interpersonal relations and the related values of group loyalty, debt of gratitude, and reciprocal obligations are not maintained.
When this happens, some run the risk of harbouring resentment towards others as a result of feeling oppressed. This may lead to outright conflict and eventual withdrawal from the relations. Relationships remain severed unless repaired through direct negotiations and reconciliation, or by mediation of common friends and relations.
2.2.3. Values on religion
Filipinos are religious and spiritual with more than 80% of the population declaring themselves to be Roman Catholics (Philippine National Statistics Office 2011). More than
5% follow the Protestant Christian denominations like the Born-again movements,
Lutheran, Evangelical, Methodist, Pentecostal, and many more. Close to 5% are Muslims;
3% belong to the Philippine Independent Church or Aglipayan, and 2% follow the Iglesia ni
Cristo or Church of Christ (National Statistical Coordination Board 2011). Almost every aspect of the social life of many Filipinos revolves around religion. Almost all holidays in
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the Philippines are religious. Even politics is no stranger to the influence of religion. The blessing and endorsement of religious leaders are often sought by politicians in the
Philippines during election times.
Local religious traditions and practices influence the parenting style of Filipinos.
Filipino parents teach their children norms and values according to societal expectations, often based on the way they had been socialised into these norms themselves. Respect and obedience are fundamental values that are taught to children. These behaviours are often linked to a particular religious tradition and other indigenous beliefs. Children are baptised into the religion of their parents and are expected to follow that religion in their adult life. Many Filipino parents believe in the old saying that ‘A family that prays together, stays together.’ They encourage, if not insist upon, children praying with the family during mealtimes or other gatherings. A Filipino Catholic home may be identified by the presence of religious icons (Tondo 2010) and a designated area for prayer. A family often undergoes tremendous stress when one of its members converts to a different religion or becomes an atheist. For many Filipino parents, belief in God is very important in their children’s lives and it is the family that socialises children into this belief, as well as the practices that go with it.
2.2.4. Values on schooling
Education is highly valued in Filipino culture. The functional literacy rate of the
Philippines is more than 80% for those between the ages 10 and 64 years (Ericta 2010).
Functional literacy is one of the main goals of education in the Philippines and is deemed important for the country’s national development. Education is seen as an important pathway to economic and social mobility.
Education provides children with knowledge, attitudes, and skills necessary for their personal development, their future employment, and for their participation in society.
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Children’s education is regarded as beneficial not only for the children themselves but also to the whole family network. Families rejoice when children graduate from schools and when children receive awards for academic excellence and skills. These occasions have symbolic meanings for families in that these bring them closer to a perceived future of economically independent children with the potential to contribute to the family’s better economic and social status.
Education begins at home. Parents in Philippine society, especially the mothers, are the first teachers of children. Given that the family is a most important context for a child’s development (Britto 2012; Rosario-Braid, Tuazon, & Lopez 2011; Santos, Jeans,
McCollum, Fettig, & Quesenberry 2011), a child’s school readiness is influenced by the complex interplay of multiple factors including the child’s age, cognitive, and emotional skills, parental beliefs, attitudes, education, income, and occupation, and cultural practices. The learning environment in the home can help children negotiate their way into schools. Activities that parents and significant others engage in such as singing, reciting the alphabet, counting, storytelling, reading, writing are important socialisation experiences for children.
In the Philippines, children from ages 3-6 years spend at least three hours each weekday in pre-school while elementary (primary) school children from ages 6-12 years spend approximately six to eight hours in school. While pre-school is not compulsory, it includes nursery school and kindergarten. On the other hand, it is compulsory for elementary school children to attend six years of schooling starting from Grade 1 until
Grade 6. Children go to school around 7:30 AM and stay in school until 4:00 PM, for five days a week, and approximately 200 days a year.
While it cannot be discounted that longer instructional time tends to boost learning in children (Hansen & Marcotte 2010), there are other complex school-related factors that
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can play a part in children’s learning, such as the quality of instruction, structural support from government, and school cultures. Despite reforms in the educational system and recommendations for more reforms (De Los Reyes 2011; Bautista, Bernardo, & Ocampo
2010; Bernardo 2008), the quality of basic education in the Philippines is still problematic.
Some pressing concerns of the basic education sector include increasing student drop-out rates, low test scores of students in national and international assessments, shortage of textbooks, scarcity of classrooms and facilities, lack of teachers, and inadequate wages and training for teachers.
In urban areas in the Philippines, large class sizes in most schools also raise serious concerns. Some disadvantages of large class sizes include lesser opportunities for individualised teacher-student interaction, difficulties in management of classroom issues such as discipline, and lower student achievement (Blatchford 2013; GreatSchools Staff
2013; Center for Public Education 2009; Pollard 2005; Nye, Hedges, & Konstamtopoulos
2002). Although class size seems to matter in ensuring student learning, it is not the only factor to consider for the delivery of quality education. Considering education’s impact on a country’s development, there seem to be incongruence between the value that Filipinos hold regarding education and its delivery by stakeholders, for instance, the government.
The latest attempt by the Philippine Government for educational reform was the K-
12 model for basic education. This move to add two more years to high school education attracted opposition from various sectors including parents and concerned teachers
(Calonzo 2013; Umil 2013). While the problems besetting the country’s educational system have not been fully addressed, the addition of two more years in high school would entail more funding to meet not only the current shortages of manpower, equipment, and other resources in most public schools, but also the financial and resource requirements of these two additional years. This means more teachers, more training for teachers, and more
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textbooks, facilities and equipment are needed to maintain this program in order to reap the rewards that the government has envisioned.
Parents are also wary of this move given that it entails additional expenses on their part, for example, in the form of allowances, transportation, and school materials. Many are not convinced that their children’s high school diplomas are adequate for employment in business firms. With the growing numbers of graduates that the country produces each year, high school leavers have to compete with holders of college diplomas.
For 2013, the budget allocation for the education sector in the Philippines was the highest compared with all other sectors (Legislative Budget and Monitoring Office 2013;
Aquino 2012). However, the benefits of this increased budget allocation for education remains to be seen in view of addressing past resource shortages along with new allocations required for the program.
2.2.4.1. The Philippine Basic Education Curriculum
The Philippine Basic Education Curriculum has a number of characteristics that include the additional two years of high school, the emphasis on desired core values expected to be demonstrated by Filipino learners, the use of mother tongue in the early years, and a wide coverage of content areas.
Basic education in the Philippines is highly centralised and under the management of the Department of Education by virtue of its mandate in the 1986 Philippine Constitution through the Basic Education Act of 1982 and Republic Act 9155 or the Governance Act of
Basic Education (Luistro 2012). The addition of two more years of high school (Grades 11 and 12), was implemented in June 2012 (Department of Education 2012b). Republic Act
10533 or the Enhanced Basic Education Act of 2013 officially recognised the K-12 model of basic education in the Philippines (15th Congress of the Philippines 2013). This change in the Philippine basic education system aims to raise student achievement by
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‘decongesting’ the Basic Education Curriculum, to increase the basic competencies and skills of high school graduates to prepare them for university or employment, and to keep abreast with other countries which have long been implementing this scheme (15th
Congress of the Philippines 2013; Southeast Asian Ministers of Education Organization &
Regional Center for Educational Innovation and Technology 2012).
The Department’s overarching core values, which include the following: Maka-
Diyos (faith in God), Makatao (compassion for others), Makabayan (love of country), and
Makakalikasan (care for the environment), are values propagated in all Philippine schools whose mission and vision is to develop functionally-literate and God-loving Filipinos. These core values along with the universal ideals of peace, tolerance, and harmony, are promoted in the Basic Education Curriculum developed by the Department of Education, which both public and private school systems follow. The same core values are also espoused to represent an empowered Filipino learner. These articulated values provide signposts for a hidden curriculum that teachers and other school officials ought to demonstrate to children. These values promote principles that are beneficial to the children’s holistic development (academic and ethical) and these same values are deemed important for Philippine society to thrive. However, with a country whose people continue to experience a wide range of societal problems such as poverty, joblessness, and health and sanitation issues, one cannot help but question whether or not the schools are attaining their goals regarding these enshrined values.
Another identifiable feature in the Basic Education Curriculum is the use of the child’s mother tongue as the language of learning starting from Kindergarten (Giron 2008).
Mother-tongue language is a separate subject from Kindergarten to Grade 3. The use of the child’s mother tongue is encouraged until he or she reaches Year 12. Filipino as the second language of instruction is also used from kindergarten to build the child’s oral
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fluency in Filipino. When the child reaches Grade 2, reading and writing in Filipino is introduced and developed, and used as the medium of instruction for most subject areas until the high school years. English is considered as the third language of learning of
Filipino children. By Grade 3, building on the first two languages of the child, oral fluency, writing, and reading in English is developed until the child reaches Year 12. Most schools use English only for the English subject, while other subject areas are taught in Filipino.
The use of mother tongue or the mother tongue-based learning was introduced in
2009 by the Department of Education. This move was based on the findings from international studies on basic education regarding the value of the mother tongue in improving learning outcomes (Giron 2008; UNESCO 2003). However, with its recent introduction in the Philippine Basic Education Curriculum, many teachers in the Philippines face more challenges emerging from three languages of instruction, identifying confusions and complications in translating concepts from English to mother tongue, Filipino to mother tongue, and vice versa (Umil 2013).
Elementary schooling is compulsory in the Philippines. Kindergarten is not compulsory but many schools include pre-school and Kindergarten in their curriculum. The
Basic Education Curriculum for elementary (Grade 1 to 6) or primary schools covers a wide scope of content areas from five core subjects in the curriculum which include English,
Filipino, mathematics, science, and Makabayan (social studies, livelihood, and values education), as well as other subjects like Music, Arts, and Physical Education. Each subject has its own scope and sequence. Except for Grades 1 to 2, students have different teachers for different subject areas. Moreover, for each content area, textbooks are developed by publishing companies, which are updated on a regular basis as the curriculum changes. Textbooks in the Philippines reflect a content-heavy curriculum. For
Grades 3 to 6, approximately nine to ten subjects compete for time allocations.
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Considering time constraints for a given subject matter and a content-heavy curriculum, children bring home some (if not a lots of) school work. Homework is almost as much a family affair as household routines. Despite having ‘No Homework Policy on
Weekends’ by virtue of Memorandum 392 of the Department of Education, in the
Philippines it is common practice to give homework to children, for example, to work on projects, answer textbook exercises, and do research work. As such, homework can be viewed as teachers outsourcing teaching to parents and caregivers, since often, many children either ask help from parents and caregivers to do homework or the parents themselves facilitate this.
While recognising these issues regarding schooling in the Philippines, Filipino parents put a high premium on the education of their children. Children, who eventually graduate and find employment, earn incomes that will benefit not only the children themselves but also their families. However, some school children face challenges in school that impact on their ability to learn.
Corporal punishment on school children is one important concern for parents, teachers and school officials in the Philippines (Department of Education 2012a; Global
Initiative to End All Corporal Punishment of Children 2012; Cabilles & Francisco 2008). In many schools, the common forms of physical abuse children experience from teachers are pinching, being slapped or hit on the head, and having objects thrown at them like books, erasers, and chalk. Also, there are emotional and mental abuses which include name- calling, teasing, and harsh language (Rico & Rodriguez 2012; PLAN Philippines 2009).
Any form of violence to children, even as a means of discipline, has been known to cause poor learning outcomes and increased dropout rates, not to mention serious mental discomfort and emotional anxiety (PLAN Philippines 2009; Bautista, Roldan, & Garces-
Bacsal 2001). The Department of Education had issued a Department Order known as the
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DepEd Child Protection Policy to protect school children from violence, in accordance with the Philippine Constitution and the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, and to put in place preventive mechanisms, protective measures, and protocols to address incidents (Department of Education 2012a). Apart from this, laws criminalising violence to children are also enforced. Despite all these, many children still continue to suffer at the hands of adults.
To summarise this section, the above-mentioned Filipino values and beliefs, including education, traditions and practices that come with them, revolve around spirituality or belief in God, family and sense of kinship, shared identity, and shared language. These values provide a sense of what it means to be a Filipino, in the context of a hybridised contemporary Filipino culture. Echoing Tan (2007), being a Filipino ‘remains in flux’ and as Filipinos go outside the Philippines, either to work or live overseas, some practices of their host culture are purposefully borrowed, modified, and transformed to enhance and suit their heritage cultures.
Hennessy (2004) argues that Filipino immigrants have been resilient in adapting the Filipino ethos to Australia’s egalitarian values by preserving their heritage legacies pertaining to food, language, and religion. The values discussed in this section need to be considered for this present study because these same values contribute, to some extent, to the sense of selves of the children of Filipino immigrants, no matter how hybridised they may be. These values identify the Filipinos and may differentiate them from the rest of the people in Australian society. These home-grown values may be challenged for their significance as the traditional family structure, roles, and societal situations of immigrant children continue to change.
In today’s globalised and networked societies, in what Castells (2000) referred to as the ‘informational age’, family structures have not been spared from dramatic changes.
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In the advanced countries like Australia, as well as in developing countries such as the
Philippines, the family is changing. These changes include growing incidence of divorce or dissolution of marriages and the gradual demise of patriarchalism where women’s roles have been transformed (Castells 2000). Redefinition of the relationships between men, women, and children, juxtaposed with reconstituted concepts of family, sexuality, and personality are realities that Filipino immigrant children face in today’s society, particularly in the receiving country, Australia. How these children are socialised to home-grown
Filipino values, how these values are challenged in the Australian school and in their interaction with peer and the mainstream Australian media, and how they respond to the challenges they encounter through socialisation are the main interests of this research.
2.3. Filipino migration to Australia: an overview
For Filipino immigrants, the preferred destination countries include the United
States, Canada, and Australia (Commission on Filipinos Overseas 2011). Many Filipinos emigrate to settle permanently in a new country for various reasons, most of which may be explained by push/pull factors (Asis 2008). They choose to leave their homeland for another country due to push factors or circumstances in the home country that force them to go out of the country, such as lack of job opportunities and low salaries. The Philippine
Government also encourages emigration of Filipinos as overseas workers, given the significant contribution of their cash remittances to the gross national income (GNI) of the
Philippines. Filipino residents from all over the world also contribute to this income in the form of cash transfers to their relatives in the Philippines. For the year 2012, cash remittances from Filipinos outside the Philippines was reported to have reached more than
US$ 20 billion (Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas 2012).
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Many Filipinos immigrate to establish themselves permanently in a new country which some attribute to factors that pull them or attract them to that destination country, such as, family reunion, better socio-economic opportunities, better educational opportunities, a relatively peaceful and healthy environment, political stability, and personal freedom. Critics of the classical theory of push/pull factors of migration have claimed that the theory is too deterministic, i.e., claiming people’s actions are as predictable as natural laws. Moreover, human mobility, as proposed by the theory, involves post hoc determinants that are grouped together arbitrarily (de Haas 2010) into push and pull factors. These factors are seen as setting the stage for migration and thus empirical generalisations are made on such reasons without considering the individual motives for movement and the interaction that plays a part in the decision to move. This study recognises that there are more to the forces behind migration than just the passive reaction of people to push/pull factors.
Today’s Filipino migrants are faced with complex real-life events that influence the decision whether to migrate or not, and to where. They have agency, i.e., they have the capacity to act on their circumstances (Jacobs 2011). Prus (2010) argues that people monitor, assess, and readjust their activities while the process of developing particular lines of action. The subsequent section shows that Filipinos who migrated to Australia were not passive individuals pushed or pulled into migration.
2.3.1. Philippine-born population of Australia and South Australia
Until the late 19th century, people from the Philippine islands were referred to as indios by the Spanish colonisers. This was a collective label for natives, along with regional categorisations, like Tagalogs, Cebuanos, Ilocanos, Visayans, among others (Agoncillo
1974). Manilamen, the term used by Australian authorities to refer to men from the
Philippines, found their way to Australia as early as the late 19th century and joined
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Australia’s fast growing multicultural indentured labour force in the pearling industry
(Hennessy 2004). The Manilamen in Australia were registered as aliens once the White
Australia Policy (Immigration Restriction Act of 1901) came into force.
Table 2.1 shows the population of Philippine-born migrants in Australia from census year 1901 to 2011 (Department of Immigration and Citizenship 2013b; Australian
Bureau of Statistics 2012c, 2012b; Department of Immigration and Citizenship 2012;
Australian Bureau of Statistics & Australian Historical Population Statistics 2006). From
1901 to the 1950s, there was a decline in the already minute population of Filipinos in
Australia. This can be attributed to the restrictive immigration policies of the government which were implemented under the Immigration Restriction Act of 1901 which remained in effect until 1975. With the implementation of the notorious 50-word dictation test as part of immigration requirements, non-white and non-English-speaking applicants were denied entry to Australia (National Archives of Australia 2008; Jupp 1991).
Table 2.1 Philippine-born population in Australia
Census year Australia South Australia 1901 689 22 1911 444 0 1921 329 1 1933 234 0 1947 141 5 1954 217 5 1961 430 22 1966 984 42 1971 2 332 60 1976 5 505 127 1981 14 816 551 1986 32 757 1 482 1991 73 007 3 058 1996 92 949 3 995 2001 103 942 4 513 2006 120 538 5 441 2011 171 233 8 858 Note: From 1971–2011, figures show population by usual residence. 2011 figures are estimates as of June. Source: ABS 2006, 2008, 2012b, 2012c; DIAC 2012, 2013b.
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Filipinos who opted to stay as alien indentured labourers in the towns with pearl industries established themselves and intermarried with other Asians, people of other ethnic backgrounds, and Aboriginals. This intermarriage afforded them time to stay in the country indefinitely to be with their families. Many of them settled in Broome, Darwin, and
Torres Strait Islands where the immigration laws were not strictly implemented compared with the other parts of Australia. Even then, they were denied naturalisation until the end of the dictation test in 1958 when a few non-Europeans were allowed to stay only after providing evidence that they had lived in the country for ‘three times as long as anyone’
(Jupp 2007, p. 10).
Without naturalisation, Filipinos, as well as other non-Europeans, were denied social welfare services. They were barred from serving in the army, although many of them were sent to defend Australia during the wars. These unnaturalised males of military age were employed as members of the labour corps of the Australian military (Jupp,
Nieuwenhuysen, & Dawson 2007; The Mercury 1942).
Through the United States, a temporary alliance between the Philippines and
Australia took effect because the Philippines was seen as geographically strategic in defending the Pacific region against Japan. After World War II, Australia’s alliance with the
Unites States allowed the Philippines to be considered in Australian foreign policy and the
Australian Government opened its first consulate in Manila in 1946 and appointed an
Australian Ambassador in 1957. In 1962, a Philippine embassy officially opened in
Canberra (Hennessy 2004).
Filipino migration to Australia steadily increased from the late 1950s and well into the 1960s and onwards when the population figures of Filipino residents leapt (see Table
2.1). In South Australia, there was an increase in the Filipino resident population. One of the reasons for this increase was the Colombo Plan that started in the early 1950s. The
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Colombo Plan was Australia’s post-war ‘symbol of engagement’ with Asia and the Pacific region, as well as an ‘instrument of Australian foreign policy in the fight against communism’ and Soviet imperialism, and ‘to influence Asia’s economic and political future’ through the provision of financial aid (Oakman 1950, pp. 1-2, 74). Under the Colombo
Plan, many Asian students, including Filipinos, came to study in Australian universities as a goodwill gesture from Australia to its founding members which later included the
Philippines (Australian Government Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade 2005).
Some highly qualified Filipinos who graduated chose to stay and were granted citizenship after passing strict pre-qualifying tests (Hennessy 2004). Immigration policies underwent changes and adjustments but the main objective was rapid assimilation of immigrants, especially non-Europeans. Jupp (2007) argues that until the 1960s, assimilation promoted the disappearance of immigrant characteristics that distinguished him or her as the ‘other’. This view was inane and problematic for non-Europeans and their children because they had physical traits such as skin colour and facial features which were impossible to assimilate, not to mention cultural behaviours such as religion and other practices. Thus, in the late 1960s, as basis for admission to Australia, the adoption of the majority culture that was ‘assumed uniform and self-evident’ was maintained (Jupp 2002, p. 22). Becoming an Australian meant acculturation and adoption of the English language.
Religion, food preferences, and other cultural behaviours were allowed as long as they were lawful and practised in private, whether individually or as a community.
Coinciding with the pronouncement to end the White Australia Policy by the
Whitlam government was the declaration of Martial Law in the Philippines by then
President Ferdinand E. Marcos in 1972. This event paved the way for a rapid influx of
Filipinos until the 1980s and onwards (Department of Immigration and Citizenship 2010b).
Some of the Filipinos who migrated to Australia were intellectuals who chose to leave
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behind the oppressive martial rule in the Philippines. Also, many Filipino brides found
Australian husbands and relocated to Australia. Other Filipinos who took advantage of the lifting of the White Australia Policy were educators, entertainers, technically skilled labourers, and medical professionals who either arrived with their families or brought them later under the Family Reunion Scheme from the 1980s onwards.
By 1976, Australian society experienced thirty years of change since Europeans from non-English-speaking backgrounds had begun arriving in the country. Australia had increasingly become multilingual and multi-ethnic. A new policy was needed to address this growing cultural diversity. Since it was not always clear what assimilation meant, the
Australian Government under Prime Minister Malcolm Fraser officially defined multiculturalism as ‘cultural pluralism’ in the Australian Population and Immigration Council
Report in 1977 entitled, Australia as a Multicultural Society which was published by the
Australian Ethnic Affairs Council (Jupp 2002).
In the course of the debate about multiculturalism, from 1976 until 1991, the
Filipino population in Australia doubled every five years. By 2001, Philippine-born
Australians reached less than one per cent (0.6%) of the Australian population
(Department of Immigration and Citizenship 2010b). In 2002, Australia received its six- millionth immigrant, an Information Technology (IT) professional who was also a Filipina
(Connell, Campbell, Vickers, Welch, Foley, Bagnall, & Hayes 2010; Welch 2010b;
Department of Immigration and Multicultural Affairs 2004). As an affirmation of the Filipino presence in multicultural Australia, various Filipino community groups and initiatives were organised all over the country, and in South Australia these included, among others, the
Filipino Association of South Australia, Incorporated or FILASA, Ethnic Radyo Pilipino,
Incorporated in South Australia, and Filipino Ethnic School of South Australia or FESSA
(Juanta, Hennessy, & Calabio 2008; Hennessy 2004).
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In 2004, many Filipino immigrants arrived as skilled workers bringing their families with them. Based on the Australian census report of 2006, there were 120, 500 Philippine- born residents in Australia which comprised 0.6 per cent of the total Australian population
(Department of Immigration and Citizenship 2010b). In 2008-09, Philippine-born permanent additions to the resident Australian population continued to grow making the Philippines the largest South East Asian source of migrants for the said years and the fifth largest overall source of new migrants to Australia for that year (Department of Immigration and
Citizenship 2010a). According to the Department of Immigration and Citizenship
(Department of Immigration and Citizenship 2010b), the substantial increase of Philippine- born permanent additions was attributed to the Skilled Stream visas for 2008–2009 making the Philippines the sixth largest source of Skilled Primary Applicants to Australia. Their most common occupations were accountants, computing professionals, and registered nurses. Dependants of these migrants also came to Australia making the Philippines the fifth largest contributor of Skilled Stream dependants (Department of Immigration and
Citizenship 2010b).
Likewise, also for the same year, Family Stream visas granted to Filipinos made the Philippines the fourth largest cohort of Family Stream migrants, falling behind China,
UK, and India. Based on the latest immigration statistics, the Philippines ranks 6th largest when it comes to the birthplace of immigrants (Department of Immigration and Citizenship
2010a). Many Filipinos who immigrate to Australia decide to stay in the country and most are granted permanent residency status.
Table 2.2 shows the top 10 previous citizenships of people who became Australian citizens by conferral in 2011–12 (Department of Immigration and Citizenship 2013a). A total of 84,183 persons were granted Australian citizenship for 2011–2012 and the
Philippines ranked as fourth.
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Based on the report of the Department of Immigration and Citizenship (2012), the top-ranking occupations of Filipinos who were granted permanent residency status for
2011 – 2012 were accountants, software programmers, registered nurses, and engineers
(industrial, mechanical, and production), Information and Communication Technology (ICT) business and systems analysts, and auditors, company secretaries and corporate treasurers.
Table 2.2 Top 10 nationalities conferred with Australian citizenship, 2011–2012
Former citizenship Total conferred Per cent United Kingdom 16 401 19.5 India 10 076 12.0 China, Peoples Republic of 6 876 8.2 Philippines 5 592 6.6 South Africa, Republic of 4 206 5.0 New Zealand 3 458 4.1 Vietnam 1 929 2.3 Sri Lanka 1 671 2.0 Korea, Republic of 1 570 1.9 Malaysia 1 487 1.8 Source: DIAC 2013.
In South Australia, more than 20% of the total population of South Australians are foreign-born and more than 11,000 people claim Filipino ancestry (Department of
Immigration and Citizenship 2013b; Australian Bureau of Statistics 2012a). This proportion of Filipino immigrants, however, is small compared to the Filipinos living in New South
Wales, Victoria, Queensland, and Western Australia.
Most migrants who now come to Australia including students, skilled workers, and those who intend to live here permanently are required to take an English language test and many have met the minimum competency levels to be allowed entry in the country.
Many migrants, including Filipinos, had to sit in the tests several times until they reached the required score. However, there are those who are allowed entry to Australia without having to take the English competency test. Others (spouses and adult family members of
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the principal applicants) enter Australia without an English competency test, unless they pursue further studies or employment that requires some level of English competency.
Furthermore, exemptions from English language tests for certain visa types are made on special circumstances such as salary, education, and business investment (Department of
Immigration and Citizenship 2013c; Minister for Immigration, Multicultural Affairs, &
Citizenship 2013).
In recent research on the International English Language Testing System or IELTS test takers, the Philippines ranked in the top 5 along with Brazil and Kenya in terms of highest average scores for the Academic Strand with a band score of 6.7; and for General
Training Strand, the Philippines shared rank 11 with several other countries with a band score of 6.1 (International English Language Test System 2011). The IELTS is assessed on a 9-band scale and reports overall and individual scores that test listening, reading, writing, and speaking skills. Likewise, in the 2012 survey on business English conducted by GlobalEnglish, the Philippines scored above 7.0 (out of the highest Business English
Index of 10). This index is said to be within the range of high proficiency in English which indicates an ‘ability to take an active role in business discussions and perform relatively complex tasks’ (GlobalEnglish 2012).
The Philippines prides itself as one of the largest English-speaking countries in the world. The Filipinos are said to be attracted to English due to its long colonial history under the Americans. Without undermining the complexity of this matter, this dimension can also be combined with what is happening in the Philippines today, that is, the Philippines is evidently the United States’ neo-colony (Constantino 1969). Filipinos have taken on the perspective that English is the universal language and as such it controls most of the professions in the Philippines, including education (Thompson 2003). It is not surprising to see a Filipino conversing in English even with striking grammatical errors and
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mispronunciations. Nevertheless, this competency in the English language enables
Filipinos to adapt to Australian society.
2.4. Culturally diverse Australia
Australia is a nation of immigrants (Nieuwenhuysen, Higley, & Neerup 2009).
According to the latest Australian census, a quarter of the population was originally born overseas (Department of Immigration and Citizenship 2011a). This group, that comprise
27% of the total Australian population, are also called first generation Australians and include Australian citizens, permanent residents and, long-term temporary residents
(Australian Bureau of Statistics 2012c). Likewise, the latest census also reveals that 20% of the population of Australia has at least one overseas-born parent. This cohort is referred to as second generation Australians. The third-plus generation Australian are those whose parents were born in Australia (Australian Bureau of Statistics 2012c). This comprises 53% of the total Australian population. The statistics on birthplaces of people living in Australia reinforces the notion of cultural diversity as indicated by diverse ethno-linguistic and religious backgrounds.
Together with New Zealand, Australia continues to be an immigrant-receiving country in the South Pacific region. As an immigrant-receiving nation, Australia is one of most preferred settlement destinations for Filipinos, along with countries like the United
States of America and Canada (Commission on Filipinos Overseas 2011). The Australian
Government’s skilled migration program provides a viable opportunity for skilled Filipino workers and their dependants to become permanent residents and acquire citizenship status upon meeting the Government’s requirements for occupational type, language, and skills, through a points-system scheme (Department of Immigration and Citizenship
2010b). The Philippines is an exporter of skilled migrants to many parts of the world. Given
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the unfavourable employment situations of skilled workers in the Philippines, opportunities to work or live overseas are always considered.
Australia is a multicultural nation and South Australia presents itself as a multicultural state, where migrants settling in the region over the past four and a half years have arrived from 200 countries (Multicultural SA 2011). South Australia continues to experience a steady flow of migrants. In the latest figures for migrant arrivals in South
Australia, the Philippines ranked top 12 among the countries of origin (Multicultural SA
2011). As with other migrants, Filipinos face the reality that cultural diversity in Australia exists and that they belong to an invisible ethnic minority whose members can be mistaken for Southeast Asians and Chinese.
Holmes, Hughes, and Julian (2012) define multiculturalism as a process of interaction between different cultures. In Australia, multiculturalism is a policy that expects all members of the Australian society to have equal access to services despite ethnic backgrounds. Multiculturalism is seen as a means of managing cultural diversity in
Australia (Holmes, Hughes, & Julian 2012; Hodge & O'Carroll 2006). However, for Hodge and O'Carroll (2006) there exists a distinction between the terms ‘multiculturalism’ and
‘multiculture’. According to their proposition, it is necessary to understand what actually happens or what is practised in Australian multicultural society. Hodge and O’Caroll (2006, p. 3-4) argue that in Australian society, what is seen is multiculture which refers to a
‘shifting, dynamic interweaving of cultures and diversities, as well as political policies and aspirations’. While multiculturalism emphasises official policy on cultural diversity, multiculture underlines lived experiences of cultural diversity (Holmes, Hughes, & Julian
2012). In the New York Times article of Holland Cotter, the conclusions he reached about minority artists may also be applied to other minority social groups living in multicultural societies like Australia:
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Race and class are a problem, though, for minority artists. And multiculturalism ended up being as much a hindrance as a help. It made ethno-racial identity a source for gaining cultural power, but it also turned into a trap (Cotter in Wood 2003, p. 242).
By maintaining a policy of multiculturalism, people from minority groups may be moulded or trapped into particular identities, characterised by how they look and the groups they represent. In other words, some of their identities are carried unwillingly. Such a limited perspective hinders people from charting their own lives because multiculturalism perpetuates unfair distinctions (Wood 2003, p. 371). Multiculturalism as policy may be seen as an ideology that enshrines a dominant culture and marginalises minority cultures. It has been seen as a technique of imagining a nation that centred on majority white culture
(Harris 2009; Hage 1998).
However, the adoption by the Australian Government of an official multicultural policy that promotes diversity with no dominant culture in Australia and where Australian values were being forged became a unifying force as well as a subject of dissension and debate. Senator Kate Lundy, Parliamentary Secretary for Immigration and Multicultural
Affairs said, ‘Multiculturalism in Australia is about building a shared sense of nationhood forged through mutual respect, common values and a commitment to fairness’ (in Pardy &
Lee 2011, p. 297).
As one of the countries in the world that continues to receive immigrants, Australia has a dominant migrant settlement policy conceptualised as multiculturalism (Department of Immigration and Citizenship 2011b). Multiculturalism is a life style that enables members of the society to maintain their own culture and values, without discrimination or disadvantage. The Australian Government’s multicultural policy is defined in The People of
Australia: Australia’s Multicultural Policy (Department of Immigration and Citizenship
2011b). In principle, the policy recognises the breadth and diversity of Australian society
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and culture while reaffirming the Government’s support for a socially cohesive nation
(Department of Immigration and Citizenship 2011b).
The recent Gillard Government echoed what Prime Minister Paul Keating argued about the type of multiculturalism in Australia, that it is underpinned by a respect for traditional Australian values as ‘the first loyalty of all Australians’ and for such basic principles of Australian society as its Constitution, the rule of law, parliamentary democracy, freedom of speech and religion, English as a national language, equality of the sexes and tolerance (Bowen 2011). The policy underlines the expectation that all
Australians should have equitable access to services, regardless of class, ethnic and religious backgrounds and practice.
The research of Pardy and Lee (2011, p. 300) on immigrant communities, immigrants, and refugees shows that a multicultural reality is not something to be accepted, debated, or rejected for the main reason that a multicultural reality is a fact of life. Multicultural reality exists as a social fact where interaction is pervasive as societies like Australia increasingly become networked, globalised, and diverse. Pardy and Lee
(2011) reveal that ‘immigrants and refugees often claim multiculturalism as their space’ that guarantees citizenship and belonging (Pardy & Lee 2011, p. 300). However, echoing
Hodge and O’Carroll (2006, p. 3-4), Australia has a ‘shifting, dynamic interweaving of cultures and diversities’ and therefore the current manifestation of multiculturalism reduces the value of plurality by depicting minority ethnic groups as different and as such they are marginalised from the Anglo-Australian population. The ‘multicultural space’ that immigrants and refugees claim in Australian society is still at the margins.
Many say the rhetoric of multiculturalism does not match the reality of day to day practice. Multiculturalism is problematic and a highly debated concept which sometimes polarises people. Some claim that it allows ethnic communities to practise their religion and
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speak their language without discrimination. Others claim it will never unite Australia which was founded on a Judeo-Christian, liberal democracy. A pronouncement from the
Australian Government that multiculturalism works in Australia (Bowen 2011) is a view that is not shared by all. Multiculturalism in Australia is selective as it does not embrace particular aspects of people’s cultures that go against liberal democracy and the rule of law such as practices that subjugate women, harm children, and treat animals unethically. As debates about various views and interpretations of multiculturalism continue, everyday enactments of a multicultural reality or Australian multiculture are seen only in visible aspects of social activities like Harmony Day, Australia Day, Special Broadcasting Service
(SBC) programs on television, fusion cuisine, ethnic/cultural festivals and the like.
However, the more salient principles of pluralism and non-discrimination like equal access to welfare, and economic, social, and political power continue to be evaded.
After more than three decades, multiculturalism remains a focus for the Australian
Government despite serious contentions about the concept. The discourse of a white- dominant culture prevails as multiculturalism is celebrated and cultural others are tolerated.
Everyday practice of multiculturalism in many sectors of society remains elusive as ethnic minorities are categorised into the cultures they represent and discriminated on the basis of skin colour and ethnicities.
2.4.1. Australian values in schools
The culture of Australian schools and their curriculum is based on the culture of the dominant Anglo-Australian group. The Australian multiculture promoted by the
Australian curriculum, espouses core values and principles of Australian society. These include the following: commitment to Australia, freedom, a fair go, democracy, rule of law, tolerance, mutual respect, political equality, equal opportunity, and non-discrimination.
These values are articulated in the National Framework for Values in Australian Schools
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(Department of Education, Science, & Training 2005) which cite nine common values: care and compassion; doing one’s best; fair go; freedom; honesty and trustworthiness; integrity; respect; responsibility; understanding, tolerance, and inclusion. Similarly, in South
Australia, the South Australian Curriculum Standards and Accountability (SACSA) framework included values such as trust, caring, diligence, honesty, responsibility, respect, fairness, excellence, integrity, equity, and inclusivity. Given the principle of promoting respect within a shared cohesive set of Australian values (Welch 2010a), cultural diversity as a vital characteristic of Australian society, and the official adoption of multiculturalism as a policy, schools in Australia celebrate students’ diverse cultural background with community events like the Harmony Day.
Initially, these values seem to strengthen the Filipino children’s very own core values. These ideals are good in theory but may not be practised in many schools.
Nevertheless, this framework provides a context for socialisation that the children of
Filipino immigrants experience in Australian schools. Whether or not the practice of these values clash or compete with the Filipino child’s own values is of particular interest in this study.
Even though many Australian teachers are sensitive to the role that cultural difference plays in the education of children, there are some who may not even be aware that culture can cause difficulties in learning (Hayes 2010; Santoro 2009). Santoro (2009) argues that the knowledge of ‘ethnic self’ and ‘ethnic others’ has implications for the multicultural pedagogies in Australia. She studied pre-service teachers on practicum and explored how these teachers engaged their students from culturally diverse backgrounds.
Collecting data in three stages— from pre-teaching experience through experience to post- teaching experience—Santoro (2009) found out that pre-service teachers held simplistic understandings of their students and their own identities. The study revealed certain
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stereotypes, e.g., Vietnamese girls as quiet and Muslim boys as rowdy that pre-service teachers have of children from diverse cultural and ethnic backgrounds as a hindrance to multicultural classrooms. Findings also revealed that teachers failed to address their shortcomings and students’ disruptive behaviour. Santoro (2009) emphasised the importance of developing culturally relevant materials for students and training teachers about the students’ cultures and identities.
2.4.2. The Australian Curriculum
The Australian Curriculum developed by the Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority or ACARA is currently (2013) in phase one of its implementation throughout Foundation (Reception) to Year 10 in government and non-government schools in Australia (Department of Education, Employment, & Workplace Relations 2013). The senior secondary curriculum (Years 11–12) has also been developed and endorsed by all state ministers in December 2012 (Department of Education, Employment, & Workplace
Relations 2013). In South Australia, the Australian Curriculum for English, mathematics, science and history will be implemented for 2013 from Reception till Year 10, while the other learning areas will still use the South Australian Curriculum Standards and
Accountability (SACSA) framework (The Government of South Australia 2013). Primary school in South Australia comprises Reception to Year 7. Children in the primary school are aged 5–13 years old. They spend approximately six hours each weekday in school for four school terms spread over a period of 200 days in a given school year.
Australia promotes English as the official language and immigrant children are expected to acquire the language in order to cope with school curricular and non-curricular activities. Although the Australian curriculum recognises children’s diverse cultural and economic backgrounds, it operates mainly in the English language (Hayes 2010). The
Australian Curriculum identifies the English subject as central to the learning and
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development of all young Australians from Foundation (Reception) to Year 10 (Australian
Curriculum, Assessment, & Reporting Authority 2013). English comprises three strands that inform, support, and are interrelated— language, literature, and literacy. In the
Australian Curriculum, English is also identified with the seven general capabilities that cover the knowledge, skills, behaviours, and dispositions, along with curriculum content in each learning area and the cross-curriculum priorities that will assist students to live and work successfully in the 21st century (Australian Curriculum, Assessment, & Reporting
Authority 2012). The seven general capabilities include: literacy, numeracy, information and communication technology (ICT) capability, critical and creative thinking, personal and social capability, ethical understanding and intercultural understanding. Cross-cultural priorities in the Australian Curriculum include the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander histories and cultures, Asia and Australia’s engagement with Asia, and sustainability
(Australian Curriculum, Assessment, & Reporting Authority 2013). On top of these, other learning areas (subjects) include Mathematics, Science, History, Geography, The Arts,
Languages, Health and Physical Education, Technologies, Economics and Business, and
Civics and Citizenship. English is the language of instruction that links learning in these curricular areas.
Children from non-English speaking backgrounds (NESB) and cultures, especially those that speak mother tongues other than English or those who have English as a second language, like the children of Filipino immigrants, may experience disadvantages in their education due to language difficulties. Some immigrant children are either placed in schools that cater for new arrivals or are pulled out from their regular English classes and placed in English as Second Language (ESL) program. The cultures of many of these children are not represented in the curriculum. Their interaction with teachers and classmates may also be affected due to language deficiencies.
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2.4.3. Children of Filipino immigrants
This study on children of Filipino immigrant children in South Australia is important to provide insights to better understand this group and their social and educational needs.
Children in immigrant families account for 35% of the country’s overall childhood population in Australia (UNICEF Inocenti Research Centre 2009; Australian Bureau of
Statistics 2006). A small but substantial share of the total number of immigrant children in
Australia comes from the Philippines and more than 2,000 children in South Australia, aged 0-17, have Filipino ancestry (Australian Bureau of Statistics 2012d). Table 2.3 shows the total number of Filipino immigrant children in Australia, as well as other immigrant children according to their countries of origin (UNICEF Inocenti Research Centre 2009).
Table 2.3 Top 10 countries of origin of children in immigrant families in Australia
A NOTE: This figure/table/image has been removed to comply with copyright regulations. It is included in the print copy of the thesis held by the University of Adelaide Library.
Source: UNICEF, 2009.
Statistics show that a substantial portion of Australia’s children are from immigrant families with diverse languages and cultures. Their successful adjustment in the country can have positive consequences for Australia’s economy and socio-political life. In the
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words of Eglantyne Jebb, founder of Save the Children, 1919, ‘The future of the world rests with the child.’
Studies show that immigrant children experience adjustment problems to the academic demands of schools in both achievement and participation (Abada, Hou, & Ram
2008; Adams & Kirova 2007; Goodwin 2002; James 1997). Yet, children seem to understand new cultures faster than their parents through immersion in the school
(Johnson 2007).
Studies in the United States (Eng, Kanitkar, Cleveland, Herbert, Fischer, &
Wiersma 2008; Kim, Benner, Ongbongan, Acob, Dinh, Takushi, & Dennerlein 2008; Nadal
2008; Agbayani-Siewart & Enrile 2003; Espiritu & Wolf 1999; Wolf 1997) on a group of children of Filipino immigrants found that Filipino immigrant children encountered cultural and psycho-social challenges in school and at home that profoundly affected their academic experiences. These factors included issues about the immigrant child’s identity and family values. Unless the influence of the home culture on learning is recognised and issues related to it are addressed, children, parents, and even teachers will continue to experience difficulties (Maadad 2009; Zhou 2007; McBrien 2005; Liebkind, Jasinskaja-
Lahti, & Solheim 2004; Birman & Trickett 2001; Phinney, Horenczyk, Liebkind, & Vedder
2001; Fuligni 1998; McCarthy 1998; Zhou 1997).
This study examined the cultural socialisation of immigrant children in the home vis-à-vis the school and how the children recognised and addressed the possible conflicts they encountered. Large-scale studies have been done on immigrant children in general and across cultures, which provide empirical evidence and descriptive analysis of the circumstances of immigrant children in Australia (Katz & Redmond 2009; Gray & Smart
2008; Leung, Pe-Pua, & Karnilowicz 2006; Sonderegger & Barrett 2004). These studies utilised census data, longitudinal approaches, and empirical findings from other academic
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literature. Scholarly attention has also been given to second generation Australians or children and youth born in Australia and who have at least one parent who is foreign-born
(Gray & Smart 2008; Khoo, McDonald, Giorgas, & Birrell 2002). However, there is a dearth of research, on the circumstances of children of Filipino immigrants in Australia, particularly those who are Philippine-born. As such, this research aims to contribute to the research on children in immigrant families in South Australia, particularly the first generation Filipino immigrant children.
Children in immigrant families, aged 0-17 from their last birthday, are referred to by
UNICEF as those who live in families with at least one immigrant parent, that is, a parent who is not born in the country of settlement (UNICEF Inocenti Research Centre 2009).
These children in immigrant families may belong to the first generation immigrants (those not born in the country of settlement), or to the second generation (those who were born in the country of settlement). Filipino immigrant children, that is, those who are Philippine- born, who voluntarily settle in Australia with their immigrant parents are referred to as first generation immigrants. In an attempt to provide a distinct generational typology of immigrant children and for theoretical and empirical precision, Rumbaut (2004) proposed that children aged 0 to 5 years be called 1.75 generation; those aged 6 to 12 be referred to as 1.5 generation; and those aged between 13 to 17 or the adolescent immigrants belong to the 1.25 generation (Rumbaut 2004). This was done to address the theorised significant differences of the generational cohorts in terms of economic adaptation outcomes, socio- economic attainment and mobility, language, and acculturation (Rumbaut 2004). On the other hand, second generation typology is for children of immigrants born in the host country (Rumbaut 2004; Zhou 1997; Portes 1996) and have at least one parent who is foreign-born. In Australia, there is no general consensus regarding these generational terms. For the purposes of this research and for simplicity, the specific cohort of this study,
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the Filipino immigrant children in primary school, with ages 8 to 12, who have immigrated with their parents, will be referred to as ‘first generation’ immigrants. This definition is consistent with the study of Katz and Redmond (2009) on the circumstances among immigrant children families in Australia.
The report of Katz and Redmond (2009) for the UNICEF Inocenti Research on immigrant children provided a recent picture of the conditions of children in immigrant families in Australia. Katz and Redmond (2009) claimed that compared with other immigrant children from other affluent countries, children in immigrant families in Australia fare as well as, if not better than, native-born Australian children in terms of education, health, and participation in the labour market. Despite these findings, other available research on the situation of immigrant children show that they can still face difficulties in accessing services, encounter discrimination and racism in the workplace, and trauma associated with separation from the familiar social networks of their countries of origin
(Katz & Redmond 2009). Nearly 70% of the Filipino immigrant families in the study own their homes; nearly 70% speak English at home; compared with other immigrant families, nearly 40% of Filipino mothers have tertiary education qualifications; more than 70% of
Filipino immigrant children have at least one parent working full time; and 88% of young
Filipinos aged 15-17 are in school (Katz & Redmond 2009). Such reports on the Filipino children’s circumstances are limited because they focus on the immigrant children’s economic status and academic track record. Little is known about their adaptive strategies and perspectives on their situations, stresses, strains, and struggles.
Given these data on the circumstances of immigrant children in Australia in general, Katz and Redmond (2009) recommend further research on immigrant children.
Many of the studies done on immigrant children categorised the immigrant children into
English-speaking versus non-English-speaking, or culturally and linguistically diverse, or
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those who have a language background other than English. These categorisations posed difficulties in understanding the issues of particular groups of ethnic children who belong to the visible minority (Katz & Redmond 2009; Windle 2004). Immigrant children come from diverse cultures and hence groups of immigrant children must be studied separately to better understand the children’s perspective on their particular circumstances which are otherwise taken for granted in studies that are large-scale or across cultural groups.
2.5. Conclusion
This chapter has presented a background on some aspects of the hybridised culture of Filipinos. Although ethno-linguistically diverse, many Filipinos understand and speak English well. This familiarity with the English language can be traced from the
Philippines’ colonial history under the United States. To date, English is the preferred language of business in the Philippines and is one of the mediums of instruction in many
Philippine schools. For this reason, many children of Filipino immigrants have knowledge of English especially those who have undergone some years of schooling in the
Philippines.
The chapter also discussed that Australia (South Australia) as a destination country for Filipino immigrants is advanced, networked, and multicultural. It is identified as one of the most preferred destinations of Filipinos for work or permanent migration.
Filipinos in multicultural Australia belong to the invisible minorities since they can easily be mistaken for other Southeast Asians or Chinese. Filipinos are found in many sectors of
Australian society, some working as business owners, nurses, health professionals, skilled workers, IT professionals, and educators.
Literature shows that immigrant children face challenging experiences. These are both cultural and educational in nature. Cultural challenges arise from conflicts related to
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their heritage and parental culture, on one hand, and on the other, the cultures of the people of Australia and Australian values, particularly at school. Educational challenges are connected to academic demands, language difficulties, and school socialisation practices. The vision statement of the Council of Australian Governments (2009) states that the Commonwealth, state, and territory governments must ensure that ‘all children have the best start in life to create a better future for themselves and for the nation’ (p. 4).
One way of ensuring a better future for immigrant children in general and children of
Filipino immigrants in particular, is by understanding their particular challenges and helping them overcome difficulties.
This present study fills a gap in research by examining the experiences of a particular cohort of Filipino immigrant children, aged 8-12, in South Australian primary schools. Their challenges and successes in Australia were identified and in the process their adaptive strategies were examined using symbolic interactionism to analyse the children’s socialisation experiences and their resulting concept of selves, identities, and roles.
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Chapter 3 Theoretical framework
3.1. Introduction
This chapter outlines how symbolic interactionism informs this study on the perspectives of children of Filipino immigrants in South Australia regarding their experiences in the home, at school, with peers, and with media. The chapter begins with a basis for choosing the interactionist perspective, emphasising how the theoretical framework underpins the present study. A discussion of the principles of symbolic interactionism follows focussing on the key concepts, latest applications, and some criticisms of the theory.
3.2. Rationale for the framework
Symbolic interactionism, also known as interactionism, has been chosen as the theoretical framework to examine the array of perspectives that children of Filipino immigrants hold regarding their home and school experiences in South Australia. Symbolic interactionism was used because it is concerned with processes in human interaction that pertain to children’s dynamic social activities in at least three of their most important contexts of interaction— the home, the school (which includes their peers), and media. For symbolic interaction theorists, social life refers to the interaction of individuals with themselves and others by using symbols such as words, gestures, roles, or any other social objects that have meaning for individuals who intentionally use these symbols to represent information and to communicate (Blumer 1969; Mead 1934). Symbolic interactionism recognises that children are active and creative in the socialisation process.
Children have capacities to take on perspectives, to make choices, and to act on situations and adjust their actions according to the response of others.
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Symbolic interactionism allowed the researcher to understand how the children of
Filipino immigrants made sense of the world in the wake of immigration to Australia as they confronted their new home environment and new school in South Australia.
The key principles and concepts of symbolic interactionism are discussed in the succeeding sections.
3.3. Symbolic interactionism: pragmatist contribution and basic principles
Symbolic interactionism may be traced back to the works of pragmatists, such as
Charles Peirce (1839–1914), William James (1842–1910), Georg Simmel (1858–1918),
William Isaac Thomas (1863–1947), Dorothy Swaine Thomas (1899–1977), Max Weber
(1864–1920), John Dewey (1859–1952), Charles Horton Cooley (1864–1929), and George
Herbert Mead (1863–1931). Charles Peirce is considered as the father of American
Pragmatism. He coined the term ‘pragmatism’ which refers to a theory of meaning and value. For Peirce, testing the meaning of a belief, an idea, a term, a conception, or a phenomenon is accomplished by analysing the effects of such belief on its adoption (by individuals) on future conduct or belief (Campbell 2011; Barnes 2005). Pragmatism is interested in the practical (experiential) consequences of holding such beliefs. Peirce challenged idealists from ‘mere theorising to test the effects of beliefs in the real world’
(Barnes 2005; Mead 1934). Pragmatism is considered as one of the foundations of symbolic interactionism since it stressed that truth is created through everyday interactions
(Pascale 2010; Ritzer 2010).
William James is a key figure in the interactionist perspective through his exposition on the concepts of me and I. Holstein and Gubrium (2000) referred to these concepts as the empirical self, which is a product of the social world. James contributed to the concept of the self by changing the direction of the discourse away from the purely
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metaphysical self to the discussion of some aspects of the self that are derived from the social environment through interaction (Helle 2005; Holstein & Gubrium 2000). Like other pragmatists, James’ contribution to the symbolic interactionist framework relates to an examination of the experiences of common men and women with emphasis on the value of taking these experiences into account, thus grounding intelligence and the self in the empirical world (Reynolds & Herman-Kinney 2003; Holstein & Gubrium 2000) . For James, the self may only be objectified with realised experience such that self-awareness relates to the use of the term, ‘I’ for myself as subject, which is different from ‘me’, the object of such awareness. The unity of the ‘I’ and ‘me’ refers to identity (Holstein & Gubrium 2000).
For James, the self is formed locally in the daily course of social interactions and thus not fixed. With diversity as a self-evident human condition, an individual has as many social selves as there are other individuals he or she relates to (Holstein & Gubrium 2000; Nias
1989; Mead 1934). This idea of individuals having many social selves is an important concept in the symbolic interactionist framework which views human beings as social beings with complex identities.
Interaction which is based on mutual reciprocity of individuals shapes the self.
Human beings are social products in as much as society is made up of individuals interacting with one another. As with the other pragmatists, Georg Simmel argues that individuals are free and creative spirits who are involved in the socialisation process
(Farganis 2000). Simmel views individuals as both inside and outside society (Simmel &
Wolff 1950). For him, society constitutes lived experiences reproduced by people through their actions and interactions. Society has an influence in shaping individuals. Simmel also recognises that norms and values are important building blocks for human behaviour
(Simmel & Hughes 1949). Norms refer to expectations of behaviour while values refer to beliefs about appropriate or desirable behaviours. Norms and values manifest themselves
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in people’s interactions as they are tied to people’s culture and position in social groups and systems. For example, it is an assumed norm in Filipino culture that children are expected to use titles or terms that connote respect when addressing people. Filipino children are taught to address their parents as ‘Mother’ or ‘Father’ or teachers as ‘sir’ or
‘madam’. For this culture, to address one’s parents or teachers by first name is deemed disrespectful and is met with a reprimand if not punishment. Norms and values of groups and societies manifest in interactions which may shape behaviours of individuals.
Furthermore, Simmel’s influence on the symbolic interaction framework pertains to his views about the intersubjective character of social life. Intersubjectivity may be understood through the objective-subjective dialectic in human group life. Simmel explains:
But the individual does not confront society as he confronts nature. The objectivity of nature denotes the irrelevance of the question of whether or not the subject spiritually participates in nature... Its being exists and its laws are valid, independently... of any subject (Simmel & Wolff 1950, pp. 257-258).
For Simmel, social life is achieved in interaction, in which individuals with subjectivities confront their physical environment (nature) differently from what they do with society. The participation of individuals in nature is rendered unimportant for the reason that nature has its own existence (objective) and that its laws are valid in their own right (Simmel & Wolff
1950).
Hence, objectivity connotes that something is real regardless of how people think or feel about something. However, when it comes to the social environment, the individual deals with society both objectively and subjectively, according to Simmel:
Certainly, society, likewise, transcends the individual and lives its own life which follows its own laws.... Yet, society’s ‘in front of’ the individual is, at the same time ‘within.’ The harsh indifference toward the individual is also an interest: social objectivity needs general individual subjectivity, although it does not need any particular individual subjectivity. It is these characteristics which make society a structure intermediate between the subject and an absolutely impersonal generality and objectivity (Simmel & Wolff 1950, p. 258).
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Symbolic interactionism, which follows an interpretive tradition is seen by positivists as a subjective view of reality. However, symbolic interactionism is actually intersubjective according to Prus (1996). He based much of his arguments for intersubjectivity on the writings of Wilhelm Dilthey (1833–1911) but also credited Georg
Simmel as one of its proponents (Prus 1996), along with Mead and Blumer (Prus 1997).
Lauding Prus (1996) in the Foreword of his book, Kathy Charmaz writes:
By building on Dilthey, Prus, makes the strongest case I have seen since that of Alfred Schutz for viewing social and individual reality as inherently intersubjective. Such intersubjectivity develops as people interact and come to view and treat their worlds in common ways (Charmaz in Prus 1996, p. xiii).
Intersubjectivity also denotes the interaction between people’s subjectivities.
Objects and symbols become meaningful when people communicate and share meanings that they hold for such objects and symbols (Prus 1997).
Contributing to the discussion of symbolic interactionism, W.I. and Dorothy
Thomas (Merton 1995; Thomas & Thomas 1928, p. 572) proposed the eponymous
Thomas theorem: ‘If men [sic] define situations as real, they are real in their consequences.’ This principle supports the pragmatist premise that actors ascribe subjective meanings to their experiences. Actors have perspectives on situations that allow them to interpret these situations and behave and act accordingly. Their interpretations on situations may be similar or different from how other individuals define the situation and through interaction their lines of action are adjusted. This is done either by following others’ perspectives, modifying others’ perspectives to suit one’s own realities, or other possible responses. Through interaction of individuals with others and their selves, they are able to influence each other’s actions within broader social contexts and situations. Sharing definitions and interpretations of situations are sense-making actions of people and groups which become the basis of culture. Culture also refers to shared perspectives on definitions of situations that have become axiomatic truths of social groups.
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Max Weber was influential in the works of symbolic interactionists by introducing the Verstehen methodology in the analysis of social action. Weber defines social action as human behaviour to which individual actors ascribe subjective meaning (Stones 2009). For
Weber, action which is also referred to as meaningful action, can best be understood from the point of view of the actor who has the inalienable right to define what his or her action means for himself or herself as ‘the actor subjectively orients to the behaviour of others’
(Turner 1996, p. 112). Unlike the positivist tradition whereby individuals are treated as objects of investigations, the Verstehen methodology as proposed by Weber sees the human actors as subjects. They are involved in the process of knowing, as co-creators of understanding, the subjective meanings they hold about their experiences. Verstehen refers to the interpretive understanding of experiences. According to Weber:
There is no absolutely “objective” scientific analysis of culture... All knowledge of cultural reality... is always knowledge from particular points of view. ... an “objective” analysis of cultural events, which proceeds according to the thesis that the ideal of science is the reduction of empirical reality to “laws,” is meaningless... [because]... the knowledge of social laws is not knowledge of social reality but is rather one of the various aids used by our minds for attaining this end... (Griswold 2013, pp. 72, 80).
Founded on Weber’s Verstehen methodology and social action theory, symbolic interactionism is well suited for this present study on children of Filipino immigrants who are regarded as actors in their social worlds. These Filipino children hold subjective meanings about their experiences as immigrants in South Australia. Symbolic interactionism underpins the understanding of these experiences as it takes into account the importance of the children’s perspectives and their interpretations of their experiences.
John Dewey is considered as one of the forerunners of symbolic interactionism.
He expanded and refined the concept of individuals as active agents and explained that thought and mind develop in the context of human interaction (Reynolds & Herman-Kinney
2003). According to Serpe and Stryker (2011):
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Viewing human evolution as adaptation to environmental conditions, John Dewey argued that mind comes into being as persons act, individually or collectively, to resolve problems. Implicated in this argument is a pragmatic theory of action: ongoing activity is blocked, mind deliberates about and selects among alternative possibilities for removing the blockage, and activity continues when a successful solution is found (Serpe & Stryker 2011, p. 227).
The key ideas that human beings are best understood in the context of human interaction, that individuals are active agents in social life, and the need for interpretive understanding of the study of the formation of the social self, are points of connection between Weber (and other pragmatists) and the symbolic interactionism of Mead and
Blumer. The concept of self is central to symbolic interaction theory and will be discussed in the succeeding section.
Charles Horton Cooley, like James, explained the concept of the empirical self by making reference to the pronouns, I and me, which are the main indicators for communicating experiences about the self (Holstein & Gubrium 2000). Cooley (1902) coined the famous phrase, ‘looking-glass self’, which emphasises a description of the social self as ‘an imagination of a person’s appearance to the other person, an imagination of the other person’s judgement of that appearance, and some sort of self-feeling, such as pride or mortification’ (Holstein & Gubrium 2000, p. 27). This conception of the self is clearly defined and developed in interaction by taking into consideration one’s impressions and judgement of others about oneself and one’s response to those impressions. For
Cooley, human nature is not present at birth but acquired through social interaction starting with family and peers, referred to by Cooley as primary groups (Burke 2006). Cooley’s theory of self is a major contribution to symbolic interactionism.
Much of the symbolic interactionist framework grew out of the lectures and other works of George Herbert Mead (1934), notwithstanding the contributions of the other pragmatists mentioned earlier in this section. Giving due reference to James and Cooley,
Mead’s rejection of the idea of an inborn self vis-à-vis a socially interactive self, provided a
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more sociological meaning for the self. Mead stressed the importance of cognition, feeling, and interaction in the formation of the self (Holstein & Gubrium 2000; Mead 1934) claiming that the self, initially, is not present at birth but develops through the process of social experience (Mead 1934). More on Mead’s interacting self is discussed in a later section.
While Mead laid down the principles of the interactionist theory by drawing from the works of the other pragmatists mentioned earlier, it was Herbert Blumer (1900–1987), one of Mead’s students, who compiled, published, and integrated Mead’s work in his own articles and coined the term ‘symbolic interactionism’. Blumer (1969) summarised three basic principles of symbolic interactionism. Firstly, human beings, individually or collectively, act toward things on the basis of meanings. The things Blumer referred to could be physical objects, other human beings, social roles, activities, situations, or ideas.
These things in their own right do not mediate people’s actions but the meanings people ascribe to them (Holstein & Gubrium 2000; Blumer 1969). Secondly, the meanings ascribed to things come from social interaction. Blumer based this second principle on
Mead’s idea of a social self that does not stand alone but exists in a social context and is a product of social interaction. Thirdly, the meanings are modified through interpretive processes. Blumer emphasised the importance of interpreting signs and symbols to fully understand people’s minds and the meanings they hold for things (Burke 2006). He warned that meaning-making is not singular affair but a dynamic and complex process
(Holstein & Gubrium 2000; Blumer 1969). People continually engage in the process of interpretation to form and transform what is meaningful for them.
From Blumer’s principles of the symbolic interactionist theory, Charon (2010) summarised how the symbolic interaction theory views human beings in the following five premises. Firstly, individuals are social beings and human action is a product of lifelong social interaction. Secondly, individuals are thinking beings in which human action is also
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product of a person’s interaction with himself or herself. Thirdly, individuals define their situations based on ongoing interactions and thinking. Fourthly, the actions of individuals are products of what is occurring in the present situation, that is, the present social interaction, present thinking, and present definition of the situation; the past comes up as a result of thinking about the situation in the present. Finally, individuals are active beings and are actively involved in what they do.
Prus (2010) further elaborated how the symbolic interaction theory views human group life. Eleven premises and assumptions on human group life inform the interactionist paradigm. According to (Prus 2010), human group life is intersubjective, object-oriented, knowingly problematic, characterised by (multi) perspectives, reflective, sensory/embodied and knowingly materialised, activity-based, negotiable, relational, process-driven, and takes place in instances. These principles are also consistent with Blumer’s (1969) three premises for symbolic interactionism as well as the summarisation of Charon (2010) about the interactionist view of people.
Prus (2010) suggested that through community-based and linguistic interchange, the intersubjectivity of human group life is accomplished and made meaningful.
Intersubjectivity is evident in the context of a social world where interaction is the core concept. Intersubjectivity also refers to the link between objective and subjective realties that develops through interaction as people share language and symbols as well as meanings attributed to them. Symbols may be objects or social objects, which according to
Prus (2010) denote anything that can be referenced (observed, referred to as, indicated, acted toward, or otherwise knowingly experienced), representing the contextual and operational essence of the humanly known environment.
Interactionists argue that the existence of symbols in the social world enable meaning-making. Symbols are used and interpreted not only for communication but for
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creating and maintaining impressions of ourselves, to forge a sense of self, and to create and sustain what we experience as the reality of a particular situation (Johnson 2008;
Blumer 1969; Mead 1934).
Problems that arise in human group life may be attributed to the nature of the symbols as it is through symbol-based references that people begin to distinguish realms of the known and the unknown (Prus 2010). The realm of the known refers to the things that are observable, are named, categorised, or objectified, or tested; while the unknown realm refers to those that are ambiguous, not experienced, hidden, and inaccessible (Prus
2007). The nature of human knowing or experience is problematic, particularly for children in immigration situations. These children confront symbols (language, objects, and activities) in a new environment that are both known and unknown to them. Coming from a particular culture, children may find similarities and differences in their activities and how things are done in the new environment. They may respond positively to familiar activities and may need to cope with the unfamiliar ones. Given this problematic nature of human group life, immigrant children may experience educational and cultural challenges. Their definitions of these situations are worth discovering in order to have an understanding of their world.
Perspectives are developed by individuals as a means of understanding reality.
These are conceptual frameworks or notions of reality that are created and changed through interaction (Prus 2010; Woods 1983; Becker 1964). People’s perspectives may be similar to others or they may differ from those of others. Perspectives may refer to everyday informal points of view, for example, a student’s view of his or her teacher, a child’s explanation for his or her parent’s reprimand, or an immigrant’s idea about living in
Australia. They may also refer to formal non-scientific perspectives such as a Filipino worldview, Australianness, or Christian ethos. Perspectives may also be classified as
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formal scientific or academic, for instance, pedagogical, historical, sociological, psychological, Weberian, Marxist, positivist, or symbolic interactionist. To assume a perspective involves taking into account the viewpoint of others with respect to one’s own, which collectively makes human group life reflective and meaningful. This is what Mead
(1934), Prus (2010), and other interactionists mean by ‘individuals becoming objects unto themselves’ and acting accordingly.
Children have perspectives and assume perspectives (Sommer, Pramling
Samuelsson, & Hundeide 2010). Their perspectives will be discovered through how they define a situation and how they take others’ perspectives unto themselves, thus providing valuable insights into how they understand and interpret experiences, and respond to challenges they encounter.
Related to perspectives is the idea that people develop awareness of ‘what is’ and
‘what is not’, referring to material and physical things that others in the community also recognise (Prus 2010; Mead 1934). This makes human group life sensory and knowingly materialised, where people give meaning to the self and others, deal with practical limitation and fragility, and recognise capacities for stimulation and activity (Prus 2010).
Building on what Blumer (1969) had already articulated about the meaningful, multifaceted, and formulative processes that people bring together, Prus (2010) clarifies further that people are engaged in creating, constructing, and adjusting behaviour for producing meaningful activity in community contexts. With human group life being activity- based, individuals frequently interact with others as they negotiate themselves by anticipating, acknowledging, cooperating with, influencing, and resisting other’s perspectives, behaviours, and activities (Prus 2010). This explains the relational character of human group life where individuals accomplish things mindfully and in conjunction with
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others in group contexts where lived experiences are part of a process of emergent, ongoing, or temporally developed activities that take place in instances (Prus 2010).
From these premises, social life may be viewed as a broad range of interactions through which life takes on shape and meaning (Prus 2010; Blumer 1969; Mead 1934).
Interaction is the process that takes place when people act in relation to one another in a social context (Prus 2010; Mead 1934).
With the concept of interaction, it is important to distinguish action from behaviour.
Behaviour includes everything that people do. For example, a student who keeps quiet when asked by the teacher to recite in class or who raises a hand if he or she wants to be heard. Action also referred to by Weber as meaningful or intended action, is behaviour that is produced by how other people interpret and respond to that behaviour. A child will respond in class only if the teacher interprets the raising of the hand as a behaviour that the student wants to say something. In social interaction, people perceive other people and social situations, and from these construct ideas of what is expected, what values, beliefs, norms, and attitudes apply (Charon 2010; Blumer 1969; Mead 1934). On this basis, people choose to act in ways that have meaning. An example would be in a classroom situation. In a class, much of what students do is based on the recognition that they are in a school situation and they know what is expected of various actions in such situations. When students want to respond in class, they raise their hand, wait for the teacher to see them and acknowledge their eagerness, and so on. People base their actions on what they think the actions will mean to other people in the situation (Blumer 1969). It is this thought process based on meaning that distinguishes action from behaviour and which sets the core of interaction as a social process (Blumer 1969).
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3.3.1. Key concepts
The following details some of the key elements of the symbolic interactionist framework that will be used in analysing the perspectives of children of Filipino immigrants on their home and school experiences, as well as educational and cultural challenges. The key concepts from symbolic interactionism which will inform the current study are the self, others, identity, socialisation, and coping. It is relevant to discuss these concepts to help analyse how immigrant children define situations through interaction, learn about and experience the world, and make sense of the world and their experiences.
3.3.1.1. The self and others
This present study gives due reference to the social and empirical typification of the self as advanced by the pragmatist school. It also recognises Erving Goffman’s socially situated self, in which the self is ‘presented’ and ‘staged’ in dramaturgical ways (Holstein &
Gubrium 2000; Goffman 1971), revealing people’s multiple selves. However, for the purposes of this research, the Meadian concept of the socially constructed interacting self is emphasised.
George H. Mead proposed that the self is a result of one’s social interaction with others. For him, individuals are not born with a self but rather the self, arises out of social experience (Mead 1934). According to him, the self may be viewed as the ‘I’ and the ‘me’.
The pronoun ‘I’ refers to ‘who I am’, or the subject in the present, the active and spontaneous self; while the pronoun ‘me’ refers to ‘what others think of who I am,’ representing the expectations and perceptions of others, making me an object to myself
(Mead 1934).
While understanding the self, it is equally essential to recognise the concept of other. For Mead, there are also two types of other— the significant other and the generalised other. The child at play can take on the perspective of significant others. These
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are people who are important to the child, i.e., family members or other individuals whom he child respects and wants acceptance from, whom the child recognises as authority figures, or with whom the child identifies (Mead 1934). Generalised others represent the group outside of the child’s significant others. They may represent another world to a child, for example, the school, the community, or the society. The generalised other is a reference point to view one’s self. The child must abide by the set of rules, norms, values, and expectations of generalised others. The internalisation and interaction of the significant others and the generalised others gives the self an understanding of society (Mead 1934).
The self is dynamic, creative, and complex, which takes into consideration, internalised social rules but still acts spontaneously.
The development of the self undergoes four stages; the first three stages are proposed by Mead while the last stage is suggested by Shibutani (Charon 2010; Shibutani
1962; Mead 1934). The first stage of the self, according to Mead can be viewed as the preparatory stage. The self emerges at this presymbolic stage, wherein the child imitates what adults do, oftentimes his or her parents. In this stage, social objects, like the self, are not yet defined with words that have meaning (Mead 1934).
The play stage is the second phase in the development of the self. Mead (1934) explains that this stage occurs in the early development of the child and when he or she acquires language. According to Mead (1934), the child learns to take on the perspective of significant others at this stage. It is from these significant others, parents or those individuals who present themselves as role models to the child, where he or she learns to behave and conduct himself or herself. The child’s self becomes a social object at this juncture where the child assumes multiple selves and acts out roles, for example, a girl- child playing the role of daughter, sister, or student. The child may also act out more imaginary selves like playing the role of mother, father, teacher, superhero, or fairy without
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having to bother with a set of group rules. The child’s self, as a single individual, needs guidance which significant others provide even in play situations.
The game stage is the third phase in the development of the self, where the game symbolises organisation and cooperation. Mead (1934) emphasised the necessity to assume the perspectives of others simultaneously with the perspective of the self since the self is subjected to group life. A complex set of others emerges that requires the self to incorporate all the perspectives of significant others into one generalised other. This process lays the groundwork for the formation of a shared perspective or group culture
(Charon 2010; Mead 1934). In this period in the development of the self, the child starts to view the generalised other as ‘them’ or society, which, according to Mead, has a set of rules and regulated procedures (Charon 2010; Mead 1934).
The fourth stage in the development of the self is what Shibutani (1955) referred to as the reference group stage. For Shibutani, an individual may have many reference groups, generalised others, or societies with perspectives that are shared by the individual with other members of the group concerned (Charon 2010; Shibutani 1955). The reference group serves as the standard by which an individual evaluates his or her self, his or her performance, achievement, and aspirations. Reference groups may also be compared with one another based on qualities, circumstances, values, and behaviours.
These stages in the development of the self are important in understanding the process of how a child acquires a sense of self through social interaction. Attitudes and beliefs that direct their actions and behaviour are formed at these crucial stages. There may be instances where children compare themselves with other children or identify themselves with others; and although, they may not yet fully grasp the concept of reference groups, nevertheless, they are starting to evaluate themselves in terms of others, whether positively or negatively. All these occur with social interaction.
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Interactionists such as Hammersley and Nias (1999) who built on the ideas of
Mead’s self, claimed that individuals have at least two types of selves, the substantial self and the situational self (Reid 2011; Jeffrey 1999; Nias 1989). Nias (1989) defined the substantial self as ‘a set of self-defining beliefs, values, and attitudes’ (pp. 20-21) which may be resistant to change. The concept of a substantial self may be related to what
Blumer mentioned about self-concepts that are developed, maintained, and modified
(Johnson 2008). The substantial self may be a more or less stable view of one’s self, which is maintained amidst the flux and fluidity of interaction, despite interpretations that allow for some modifications of meanings. Individuals are able to maintain concepts about themselves through self-realisation of a stable self. Goffman (1961) refers to this stable self as one’s social identity:
Without something to belong to, we have no stable self, and yet total commitment and attachment to any social unit implies a kind of selflessness. Our sense of being a person can come from being drawn into a wider social unit; our sense of selfhood can arise through the little ways in which we resist the pull. Our status is backed by the solid buildings of the world, while our sense of personal identity often resides in the cracks (Goffman 1961, p. 320).
Likewise, situational selves are formed through interaction with others (Reid 2011;
Murray & Male 2005; Falmagne 2004; Woods & Jeffrey 2002; Jeffrey 1999; Nias 1989).
The situational self is adaptive to circumstances that an individual experiences and is responsive to change. It is also contextual and flexible and often adjusts and compromises as situations warrant.
The theory of the substantial self and situational self is useful in understanding the self that is shaped by cultural identity and context. An immigrant child may encounter challenges when it comes to balancing his or her substantial self, i.e., a person of Filipino ethnicity, or situational self, i.e., as an immigrant student in a new school environment.
How this balancing act is accomplished as the child negotiates his or her self within a new
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environment has implications for his or her ability to adjust and adapt successfully to changing situations accompanying immigration.
Hage and Powers (1992) applied symbolic interactionism to their analysis of post- industrial society where they claimed that even when individuals act and behave spontaneously, they still adjust their behaviour according to the response of others.
Complex selves are the kinds of selves needed to live successfully in the post-industrial society. Complex selves have the creativity and capacity to look at situations from more than one point of view and envision scenarios and solutions to problems, as well as to effectively enact those solutions cooperatively with others (Hage & Powers 1992). Building on Hage’s and Powers’ post-industrial selves, Castells (2000) proposed the concept of the networked self, whose perceptions and experiences are highly influenced by media and spaces of flows and networking logic of the information age. The space of flows refers to the material organisation of time-sharing social practices that work through flows (Castells
2000). For Castells, space is a social product where information flows through media and technology to people and groups that are networked. These people and groups interact with each other in spaces that are not necessarily place-based, hence the term a space of flows, where the networked selves take on meaning. With the internet and an array of computing and gaming technology, not to mention television viewing, it is not surprising that most children of this generation have networked and media selves.
3.3.1.2. Identity and roles
From Mead’s conception of the self, an individual’s identity is a combination of the concepts of I and me. This combination equates to the socialised self or selves. Identity is a consequence of symbolic interactionism. Berger and Luckmann (1966) referred to identity as a social construction that once crystallised can be maintained, modified, or even reshaped by social relations. Hage and Powers (1992) related the concept of identity to the
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complex self by claiming that the complex self can think about different identities with equal significance to handle change in the definition of social roles and the identities that come with them. Hage and Powers (1992) reiterated the idea of Berger, Berger, and Kellner
(1973, p. 77) that postmodern and post-industrial lives are to be recognised ‘as a migration through different social worlds and as the successive realisation of a number of possible identities and that all people possess multiple attachments and identities’. As many as there are selves and identities, so there are expectations of how people behave in different social situations or positions. These social expectations are referred to as roles (Serpe &
Stryker 2011; Turner 2001; Hage & Powers 1992; Mead 1934). Attached to the multiple identities which are parts of individuals’ selves, are the roles that people play (Stryker &
Burke 2000). Roles are socially constructed and embedded in social relationships (Hage &
Powers 1992).
Likewise, Stryker (2000) argued that the self is socially constructed and that the self is a structure of identities that reflect a complex network of interactions. Identities are representations of selves in which others are implicated. Other people’s roles in actively organising one’s identity cannot be discounted. People name and categorise each other as they respond to and treat each other in ways that are not always consistent.
Castells (2000, p. 2) echoed the view of Hage and Powers (1992) when he said that in the network society, where new contexts for the complex self/selves are emerging,
‘societies are increasingly structured around a bipolar opposition between the Net and the self’ or global network and identity. He further argued that the self is in search of a new connectedness around a shared, reconstructed identity (Castells 2000). The Net is referred to as the new networked systems and a space of flows, whereas the self denotes the multiple processes of affirming and reaffirming other people’s identities. These processes are based on meanings people hold about things in this era of rapid technological change
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and based on their interaction within the space of places, like the home, school, church, and community. For Castells (2000):
Identity is a process by which a social actor recognizes himself or herself and constructs meaning primarily on the basis of a given cultural attribute or set of attributes, to the exclusion of a broader reference to other social structures (Castells 2000, p. 22).
Identity serves as an organising principle in the network society in which individuals find a sense of belongingness. According to Castells (2000), one of the most common cultural attributes that defines an individual’s identity is religion and its accompanying values.
Snow (2001) proposed that there are at least three distinct types of identities— personal, social, and collective. Personal or self-identities refer to attributions to one’s self by the actor which have meanings and are personally distinctive such as a surname or gender (Snow 2001). These identities may not necessarily be related to one’s social roles or ethnicity but oftentimes they do intersect. Social identities are identities that refer to role identities (Stryker & Burke 2000; Stryker 1987) and categorical identities (Calhoun 2002) which situate individuals in the social space (Snow 2001) and are fundamental in social interaction. These identities include roles such as ‘mother’, ‘teacher’, or ethnic categories or national identities such as ‘Filipino’ or ‘Australian.’ Collective identities reside in the concept of a shared ‘we-ness’ or ‘one-ness’ of individuals which may also refer to
Durkheim’s ‘collective conscience’ and Marx’s ‘class consciousness’. Although the concept of ‘collective identities’ may overlap with personal and social identities, it is an interactive and involves a shared definition of a sense of ‘we-ness’ (Snow 2001).
Collective identity is not only a product of interaction but it is also ‘marked by power relationships’ according to Castells (2010b). He further argues:
In general terms, who constructs collective identity, and for what, largely determines the symbolic content of this identity, and its meaning for those identifying with it or placing themselves outside it. Since the social construction of identity always takes place in a context marked by power relationship (Castells 2010b, p. 7).
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He proposed three categories of collective identities— legitimising, resistance, and project identities (Castells 2010b). Legitimising identity refers to dominant institutions and civil society. It refers to the nation state which defines the character of the society and its people, such as democratic, multicultural, and inclusive. Resistance identities see the reality of society as antagonistic to their very own identity. One Nation, a political party in
Australia, which has a strong xenophobic and anti-immigrant sentiment, is an example.
Resistance identities challenge the globalised world in favour of their own constructed identities (Castells 2010b). Project identities embody proactive social movements that assert their identities in light of self-determination by challenging traditional and fundamentalist values. Examples of these identities are sexual and gender minorities, environmentalists, and feminist movements.
These concepts of identities and roles are useful in examining the complex selves of immigrant children, particularly in analysing how Filipino immigrant children understand their own identities and roles and that of the identities and roles of their parents, their teachers, and their peers. Their understanding of their identities and roles can explain their own behaviour, actions, and coping strategies as they navigate an ever-changing world.
3.3.1.3. Socialisation of children
Socialisation is a lifelong process of social interaction and experiences where individuals discover and develop their selves, their identities, learn patterns of culture, and conform to social norms and internalise culture (Berger & Luckmann 1966; Mead 1934).
Socialisation prepares children for social life in order for them to participate effectively in society. Symbolic interactionism emphasises the mutual influence of interaction between the individual and society. This influence is a collective process (Corsaro & Eder 1990).
Symbolic interactionism presents socialisation as ‘a fluid, shifting relationship between
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persons attempting to fit their lines of action together into some workable, interactive relationship’ (Denzin 2010, p. 2).
As discussed in an earlier section on the stages of the development of the self— presymbolic, play, game, and reference group— the child undergoes social processes involving his or her experiences and interactive relationships that become part of his or her human nature (Denzin 2010). These stages also represent socialisation contexts or environments— family, school, community, society— for the development of the child’s selves and identities.
3.3.1.3.1. Family as primary socialisation
Families generally provide a caring environment for children to develop their capacities. A family, however it is defined, is a social institution where a child initially learns about the world. Today’s families, particularly in many societies like Australia and the
Philippines, are more diverse. In addition to the traditional family, new reconfigured familial models include multiracial families, same-sex parenting, co-parenting by separated parents, children being raised by grandparents and other relatives, non-related households, step and blended families, adoptive families, single-parenting, and families with in vitro children. Families in the network society are profoundly diversified and the patriarchal nuclear family, which used to be the fundamental type of family in most English- speaking societies, is starting to fade away (Castells 2010b). Consequently, children’s lives have been transformed (Castells 2010b). What constitutes a ‘normal’ family is now much debated. As Carrington (2002, p. 17) argues, the family, whether we like it or not, has become a ‘normative narrative against which individuals have been measured up’.
Symbolic interactionism maintains that the family is a social unit of interacting personalities. The family is where the child initially is socialised into a world. The family, as a primary agent of socialisation (Denzin 2010; Bronfenbrenner 1986; Berger & Luckmann
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1966), is where children learn to interact with other members. They interpret what is going on from the meaning of symbols. Symbols refer to anything used to represent something.
These symbols are at the heart of cultural systems. They take the form of written or spoken words used in language. They also refer to objects like artefacts of culture, and physical movements like dancing. These symbols are also ideas and other ways of representing reality to others and to one’s self. Generally, it is the family that initially socialises children to learn symbols, language, rituals, and the meanings ascribed to these.
The family embodies the primary setting of ethnic socialisation where a strong sense of identity may be formed (Byrd 2012; Quintana 2012; Rogers, Zosuls, Halim, Ruble,
Hughes, & Fuligni 2012; Kiang & Fuligni 2005; Quintana 1998). It is within the family where parental and heritage cultures are introduced through parental practices that teach children about their ethnic heritage and history. Parents promote their culture to their children either deliberately or implicitly through their practices. One example is food, which is central in maintaining a group’s cultural identity (Kirshenblatt-Gimblett 2003; Fernandez
1988; Fischler 1988). Religion is also socialised in the family. The religious identity of children according to Hemming and Madge (2012) includes affiliation and belonging, behaviours and practices, beliefs and values, as well as spiritual experiences. These aspects of religious identity provide a complex and holistic view of religious identity and the role religion plays in the lives of children (Hemming & Madge 2012).
Performance of home rituals and practices in the family, such as going on holiday trips, structures children’s ‘cultural repertoire’ that serve to organise their life experiences
(Rogoff, Moore, Najafi, Dexter, Correa-Chavez, & Solis 2007). Routines, rituals, rules, and some forms of the division of labour are also part of children’s cultural repertoire.
These are learned through observation and replication by children in the family. It is through the purposeful strategy of ‘showing and telling’ that socialisation in the family
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occurs (Johnson 2008; Goffman 1971). Through children’s participation in domestic work, they are socialised to future domestic work. This process is referred to as anticipatory socialisation, where children and adolescents learn to develop conceptions of what it means to work and form aspirations and expectations regarding their own place in the world of work (Levine & Hoffner 2006; Medved, Brogan, McClanahan, Morris, & Shepherd
2006). Children also take an interest in rules (Mead 1934, p. 152). The family is the primary setting where rules are first encountered by children through play or interaction related to discipline as a means of structuring children’s repertoire of practices.
Children’s primary socialisation in the family (that gives them a primary source of identity) has undergone changes. As pointed out earlier, in today’s globalised, networked, and informational world, especially in developed countries, the structure of families is being redefined as family situations change. With advances in technology, family-based ties and networks have grown more complex as a consequence of divorce, separation, and reconstituted families, i.e., step-parenting, blended families, co-habiting parents, same-sex parenting, and where family members are not necessarily blood related but nevertheless live as a ‘family’ (Morgan 2004). In developed countries such as Australia, more children live in single-parent families (Australian Bureau of Statistics 2013). In June 2012, of all the
6.4 million families in Australia, 15% were single-parent families (Australian Bureau of
Statistics 2013). This figure is up by 1.4% on the previous year.
Likewise, women utilise in vitro fertilisation to have children, with or without a husband (Marriner 2012; Allen 2011). Many women have taken on the role as the family’s breadwinner, a marked departure from the traditional and patriarchal family role. Castells
(2010a) claimed that with the transformation of the family structure, children are being socialised to view families apart from the traditional pattern of patriarchy. Children are being exposed at an early age to cope with different settings and with different adult roles.
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Castells (2010a) reiterated what Hage and Powers (1992) argued about post-industrial lives; that with new situations in the family, the outcome of this change would be a new generation who have the capacity to adapt to changing social contexts, who can make sense of their current situations and deal with any challenges that they face.
3.3.1.3.2. Peer socialisation
In a family, a process of mutual influence occurs where adults also learn from children. This happens when children bring home practices and expressions that may be unfamiliar to parents (Clyne & Kipp 2006).These practices and expressions can come from the children’s peer group or the school. The child learns to participate in a social interaction with playmates and classmates. In a peer setting, a child’s learned and internalised culture from family socialisation is commonly brought out, which contributes to the construction of a peer culture. Peer culture refers to a ‘set of activities or routines, artifacts [sic], values, and concerns that children produce and share in interaction with peers’ (Corsaro & Eder
1990, p. 197). Also referred to as children’s culture, peer culture is a result of how children construct their own reality with one another (Kyratzis 2004; Corsaro 2003; Corsaro & Eder
1990), how they make sense of the adult world, and how they develop coping strategies
(Pollard 2005; Davies 1982). Pollard (2005) argues that children’s culture is none other than children’s shared perspectives and action. Through play, children share experiences with one another; they establish mutual memberships and norms that they adhere to.
Children learn through friendship (Grugeon & Woods 1990) and they learn how to develop friendships. Peer socialisation is a process through which children produce their own peer culture and identities.
Peer socialisation starts from childhood in the context of a family and continues into adolescence and adulthood. There are instances when siblings and cousins act as a child’s peers. Parents are often responsible for selecting their children’s environment, even
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the child’s peer group. Peers for children may come from day care, the neighbourhood, and the church. They can also come from the parents’ co-workers who have children. As children grow into their primary years, they may form close friendships with peers that come from the same school their parents chose for them. Pollard (2005) asserts that peer groups allow children to enjoy and cope with school life.
Peer socialisation and peer culture have become more complex in the context of the network society. Television, the internet, mobile phones, and computers have mediated changes and complexities in youth peer culture. Networking in informational societies, even among children, has become a way of peer socialisation. Initially thought of as diminishing social interaction, networking through the internet, has contributed to the growth and proliferation of a youth culture that is loosely connected in the virtual space, where children reflexively integrate their online life with real-world interactions (Orleans &
Laney 2000). Moreover, most youth cultures in the network society are socialised into a more Americanised culture. Most children of this generation, including Filipino children, have developed preferences for McDonalds, Hungry Jacks, MTV, Hip-hop, Facebook,
Coke, Pepsi, Nike, Gap, Levi’s, Hollywood films, and a plethora of American products proliferating domestic markets of many countries including Australia (Beare 2001; Luke,
Matters, Herschell, Grace, Barrett, & Land 2000). Media— broadcast, print, or new media— has a role in this apparent Americanisation of youth cultures.
3.3.1.3.3. Media socialisation of children
In a world characterised by digital information and communications technologies that pervade children’s socialisation, it is important to understand the role of mass media and the new media/internet in the socialisation of children. For Altheide (2003, p. 678), media contributes to the ‘definition of situations and audience expectations and criteria for self-presentations’. Children see popular culture through media and often interact with and
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interpret media content by taking the perspective of media others, such as favourite television celebrities or books character. For Comstock (1978), media can be a source of vicarious socialisation that could challenge children’s primary and secondary socialisation.
Children are socialised into other people’s lives and experiences, which they see in media
(real or imaginary). These experiences may be similar or very different from their own.
Even when the interaction is para-social wherein children form one-sided relationships with media characters, (Hoffner, Levine, & Toohey 2008; Giles 2003; Horton & Wohl 1956), children learn from the media (Barkhuus & Brown 2009; Kirkorian, Wartella, & Anderson
2008).
Play, for younger children, is often mediated through television shows like
Playschool, Sesame Street, Disney Channel, ABC Kids, and Pokemon. Children’s consumption of television, video games, and the internet has become so ubiquitous that it is now possible to use these technologies at the same time. For example, in households that are wired to the internet, some individuals, including children, are now able to read about what they are currently watching on television just by searching the internet using their tablets and smartphones. Even before watching a particular show on television, a parent can already research beforehand the classification of the show. For many parents coping with child rearing, children’s network channels provide age-appropriate media content that allow parents to use the television as babysitter (Isaacs 2011).
In Australia, most households reportedly own three or more television sets, three or more mobile phones, a gaming console, a DVD player, and a computer, while nine in ten households have internet connectivity (Australian Communications and Media Authority
2007). Children aged 8-17 spend at least two hours per day watching television (Australian
Communications and Media Authority 2011, 2007).
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Movie-going, film-viewing, and watching programs such as ABC Kids, ABC 3,
Cartoon Network, and the like, have become regular activities for children. Movies and shows have also become significant topics of interest among children when they socialise in the playground. Many of these media activities have been acknowledged by parents and authorities as beneficial to develop children’s social interaction and cultural literacy
(Australian Communications and Media Authority 2007). In a study conducted by the
Australian Communications and Media Authority (2007), almost all parents recognised the educational benefits of the internet for their children but expressed concerns about video gaming and other related electronic activities. Parents revealed that their children’s engagement with media is not especially difficult to manage in the home, especially in terms of setting rules on television watching and use of computers and other gadgets, parents still encounter challenges when it comes to keeping up with the latest technological advances, particularly the internet (Australian Communications and Media Authority 2007).
It is not surprising that some parents fall behind their children, when it comes to engagement with new media.
Some parents expressed concerns about children’s exposure to violence in the media (Australian Communications and Media Authority 2011, 2007) . Although claims were made that children’s aggressive behaviour was related to violence seen on television, recent research found that this relationship was ambiguous (Isaacs 2011; Mitrofan, Paul, &
Spencer 2009; Browne & Hamilton-Giachritsis 2008). Nevertheless, it cannot be discounted that media socialisation of children can have serious implications on their sense of selves.
The same concern may be said about advertisements that accompany children’s shows and programs. Some parents expressed concerns about the excessive advertising and the influence of advertisements on children (Australian Communications and Media
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Authority 2011, 2007). As early as age five, most children are already able to distinguish television advertisements from programs (Louis, Burke, Pham, & Gridley 2013). However, around the age of eight, many children already demonstrate understanding of the persuasive intent of advertisements (Louis et al. 2013). While research on the specific effects of advertising on children have yielded mixed results, parents are warned to monitor their children’s television viewing and educate themselves and their children to reduce the potential negative effects of advertising (Louis et al. 2013).
While increased use of media by children contributes to their peer culture (Handel,
Cahill, & Elkin 2007; Lloyd 2002), anti-social elements such as child predation, inappropriate content broadcast, and cyber bullying also take place on the internet and often victimises children. Parents, teachers, school administrators, the government, and members of the media are called on to create and effectively implement a media policy for children (Burton 2013; Australian Communications and Media Authority 2010, 2008).
In the Philippines, a study conducted by Turner International Asia Pacific for
Cartoon Network— titled, The New Generations 2012— described the media usage of
Filipino children (Olchondra 2012). A thousand children aged 7-14 were surveyed about their media and new media consumption. These children were randomly selected from the three major metropolitan areas of the Philippines—Metro Manila (80%), Metro Cebu (10%), and Metro Davao (10%). Filipino children in the survey represented low-income to high- income socio-economic groups. The research group conducted face-to-face, in-home interviews and found that 65% of the respondents owned a mobile phone, 82% had internet access in their homes and went online every week, 58% played online games, and
52% logged in to social networking sites like Facebook. The study concluded that many
Filipino children had taken control of their digital lives through their engagement with media
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technology. Furthermore, the study revealed that children influenced the purchasing patterns of their parents and guardians when it came to technology-related products.
Seven out of 10 Filipino children watch television programs for an average of four to five hours each day (Osorio 2014). Nerissa Sto. Tomas, a psychologist and parental coach, commented in an interview to a Filipino newspaper that ‘television has become like a babysitter in many Filipino households, especially for children whose parents work outside the home’ (Valisno 2012, para. 4).
Media as a source of information may actually help children to find topics that are limited by their interaction with other socialisation agents (Kirkorian, Wartella, & Anderson
2008; Louie 2003). Examples are children watching an educational program or a show on the latest dance craze, or when children need information about homework in school and their parents are unavailable or too busy to help.
With new media technology, children are more exposed to media content compared with children generations ago. Media content is loaded with stereotypes, anti- social, and unrealistic behaviours that contribute to negative socialisation. At the same time, it can be also laden with constructive content and values that enhance positive socialisation of children (Dubow, Huesmann, & Greenwood 2007). Children’s engagement with media provides learning opportunities and socialisation experiences, including virtual and vicarious experiences, which allow them to view and think about their own socialisation experiences in the home, school, with peers, and other socialisation contexts.
3.3.1.3.4. School socialisation of immigrant children
While the family offers a more personal and intimate socialisation, the school, as a secondary means of socialisation presents more formal social relationships. Schools compete with families, peers, and media but nevertheless play an important role in the socialisation of children (Sherwood 1981). The school, as an agent of socialisation for
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immigrant children, is where the child learns more symbols and meanings for such symbols, as well as socialisation practices. This is a context where the child also learns social roles and behaviours that conform to other’s expectations. These social roles are associated with values and norms of the school which may also represent that of the community or host society.
Primary school children aged 6 to 13 in Australia spend approximately 200 days in a year in school for a minimum of six hours a day, five days a week. This is a significant portion of children’s lives. This attendance signifies interaction not only with teachers and school officials but with classmates, schoolmates, and peers.
Similar to the Philippines, schooling in Australia is compulsory for children aged 6 to 16. Three broad purposes of schooling have been identified— vocational, societal, and personal (Holmes, Hughes, & Julian 2012; Connell et al. 2010; Beare 2001).Schooling has been seen as a means of laying the foundation for a productive workforce. School curricula are tailored for 21st century skills in such a way that this objective is met. School teachers and pre-service teachers are not only trained but also expected to demonstrate commitment to this goal through school and government policies (Beare 2001).
In terms of societal well-being, schooling develops a child’s sense of belongingness to human group life, in this case, a state or nation. Shared culture and a set of common values are presented to children in a formal setting through the overt and covert curriculum. The hidden curriculum embodies social learning that is not officially part of the curriculum but occurs within the system. Examples of this social learning include a wide range of social conventions, children’s role in the social hierarchy in school, and other expectations (Holmes, Hughes, & Julian 2012).
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Schooling is significant for the purpose of personal development. Education is a basic right enshrined in Article 26, Section 2 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which says:
Education shall be directed to the full development of the human personality and to the strengthening of respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms. It shall promote understanding, tolerance and friendship among all nations, racial or religious groups, and shall further the activities of the United Nations for the maintenance of peace (United Nations 2012).
Children do not enter school as blank slates. They bring to school their culture and family experiences. The school as a means of secondary socialisation is a new setting where a child encounters generalised others (teachers) and reference groups (peer groups) and where he or she confronts what is learned in his or her primary sphere of socialisation and where new selves and identities emerge. As a socialisation context for immigrant children, the school not only influences the immigrant children, but also provides a context where immigrant children themselves may share or bring aspects of their culture into the classroom and add to the cultural diversity of schools.
The school has its own culture which generally reflects the society’s culture.
School culture is defined as ‘the way things are done here’ (Department of Education,
Employment, & Workplace Relations 2011; Deal & Peterson 2009). With student learning at the foreground, school culture also refers to the school environment or ethos which is created and shared by students, teachers, and people who work in schools and who are associated with them (Pollard 2005; Beare 2001).
Following Denzin’s (2010) notion on the two broad functions of schools, we can say that schools serve to ‘Australianise’ students and sort, filter, and accredit the students’ social selves. Denzin (2010) called these functions the political socialisation of children.
This function of schools as sorting houses, where children are selected or self-selected for success or failure is also known as social reproduction (Holmes, Hughes & Julian 2012).
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This suggests the process of reproducing the economic and social status quo of a society and education is used as means to influence young people to fulfil social expectations of them. For example children from the working class are persuaded to go into trades while children from the middle and upper class are persuaded to go into professions.
But the manifest function of schools (Denzin 2010) is to instruct children.
Instruction and social interaction go hand in hand such that teachers not only instruct children about core curricular areas such as mathematics, language, science, and social studies, but also teach students about proper social behaviours, such as when to say
‘excuse me’ and ‘thank you’. Teachers share this social responsibility with parents, even though parents of an impolite child are blamed for certain misbehaviours (Denzin 2010).
Another function of schools is caretaking (Denzin 2010). Even during school holidays, some schools have out-of-school programs that care for children during work hours (Department of Education and Child Development 2012). In South Australia, many out-of-school-hours care facilities provide activities for children during vacation. These activities include field trips, sports, and crafts. Although most of these care programs are run by external businesses that hire school facilities, these child care services are overseen by the South Australian Department of Education (Department for Education and
Child Development).
Furthermore, schools are also contexts for age and gender socialisation of children, where they are taught some degree of acceptable maleness or femaleness especially in relation to age-appropriate behaviours (Vickers 2010; Connell 2009).
Likewise, the placement of children in grade levels and organisation of classes has also been based on biological age, with the basic developmental assumption that five year old children have different capacities from six year-olds (Denzin 2010).
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Given these functions of the school and the subsequent socialisation that happens therein, the school is a staged set where children’s selves are developed. These selves likewise interact with others, such as the selves of teachers and classmates. In the process of interaction and learning, students as well as parents confront a system of evaluation of capabilities and abilities. Children are ‘graded’ in terms of abilities and competencies for each curricular area and other developmental milestones are noted. Some children are encouraged to develop their skills further in activities wherein they excel or have demonstrated interest or capability, for instance, instrumental music, sports, or robotics.
This process may eventually sort out the kinds of selves that schools (and society) deem to suit certain vocations, tertiary education, and careers.
The ‘school of the future’ as described by Beare (2000) and Castells (2000) is yet to be realised in South Australia. Beare (2000) characterised the way emerging schools of the new century would look, particularly those from developed countries. The schooling of the future will be released from physical imprisonment on campus (Beare 2000). The school as a space of place (Castells 2000) has already joined the space of flows characteristic of virtuality where learning is enriched by imagery and words. Schooling will be a ‘systematic learning process’ that may no longer be dependent on physical structures called school buildings, and formal learning can take place in rented or ‘found’ space.
Schools will become ‘providers and brokers of educational service’, no longer places for learning but ‘professional agencies for accessible and systematic schooling processes’
(Beare 2000, n.p.). Schooling in the ‘future’, as conceived by Beare (2000), will have implications for the organisation of school, the curriculum, and the school culture itself.
However, even with the prevalence of digital and media technologies in South Australian primary schools, schooling within the confines of physical structures is still the most suitable and practical context for socialisation of children. Given that pupil careers are
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products of strategic actions of children in school contexts and are influenced by cultural contexts (Pollard & Filer 1999), school socialisation of children seems more viable in a physical space vis-à-vis the virtual or ‘school without walls’. Socialisation work best in face- to-face interactions.
However, the network society facilitated by media and the internet may initiate changes in the role and authority of the school in the socialisation of children. Due to rapid change in technology and the economy becoming increasingly globalised, Luke, Matters,
Herschell, Grace, Barrett, and Land (2000) suggested:
Children are constructing their identities primarily in relation to global consumer and media cultures. Parents and teachers are dealing with students who bring new kinds of skills and knowledges [sic], and are facing serious issues about identity, family structures, poverty, and social dislocation ( Luke, Matters, Herschell, Grace, Barrett, & Land 2000, p. 12).
Immigrant children in schools, like other children, confront and interact with teachers and classmates or peers with whom they form social relationships. Following the argument of Potts (2006), schools might be dangerous places for immigrant children because the school is a complex space of interacting selves and identities of teachers and children. Children confront curricular activities (official and hidden), pedagogical principles, and disciplinary practices, and interact with teachers and school officials who embody these (Pollard 2005). In this process, children may resist, react, or accommodate school relations and practices by constructing selves and identities relative to their situations in school (Devine 2002) and adjustment to teachers, peers, and the school’s culture.
As mentioned earlier, Australian school culture may be viewed as, ‘the way they do things around here,’ which particularly refers to the school climate or the school ethos
(Department of Education, Employment, & Workplace Relations 2011). Most often, it is reflective of the culture of the dominant group in society (for government schools) or within the school (Independent and Catholic schools). None the less, a snapshot of Australia’s
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preferred or ideal school culture and Australian values may be seen in what is articulated in the National Goals for Schooling in Australia in the Twenty-first Century and the National
Framework for Values Education in Australian Schools. These policies give an idea of how schools are organised and what are the expectations for acceptable social interaction. Yet, what is written in policy may not actually be happening and thus, further inquiry into school systems and how they really do things in school is necessary. For Welch (2010a, p. 161),
‘the hidden curriculum still perpetuates monocultural values and practices, while school organisations could do more to respect and promote difference’.
Although there have been studies on immigrant children in Australia that go back to the mid-70s and early 80s, a recent study on immigration and schooling across Australia was conducted by a team of researchers led by Cahill in the 1990s, which reported that majority of the teachers who participated in the study claimed that the schooling system had responded well to the needs of children from non-English speaking backgrounds
(Cahill, Birchall, Fry, Vine, Black-Gutman, & McLaughlin 1996). However, this perception of teachers did not match the other findings of this research pertaining to the prevalence of racism in schools, particularly in the secondary level. Teachers had reportedly downplayed the extent of racism in schools. Nevertheless, all schools that participated in the study were strongly committed to the creation of school environments which are free from racism, ethnic and religious hostility. In addition, the study recognised that many migrant children had achieved distinction in national and international sports (Cahill et al. 1996).
Katz and Redmond (2009) reported that in terms of schooling, immigrant children in
Australia ‘tend to be well educated, well skilled, and enjoy higher levels of inclusion in mainstream society’ (Katz & Redmond 2009, p. v). The foregoing studies, however, provide a limited view of how immigrant children are socialised in Australian schools and the school culture and how they coped with the cultural differences and challenges. While
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the immigrant children’s academic trajectories were highlighted, the studies were limited in terms of addressing children’s adaptive strategies developed from socialisation. Moreover, the large-scale studies on immigrant children focussed on generic categorisations, such as, ‘non-English-speaking backgrounds’ and ‘Asian’. The complexities of individuals and cultures of these immigrant children were barely appreciated.
Burridge, Buchanan, and Chodkiewicz (2009) found that Australia still faces polarising views about how to approach cultural diversity within schools and classrooms and called for further inquiry into the effectiveness of the strategies adopted by teacher education institutions to address this cultural diversity (Burridge, Buchanan, &
Chodkiewicz 2009). One such strategy is the Harmony Day celebrated in most schools in
Australia. Harmony Day (March 21) promotes cultural respect for everyone who calls
Australia their home from the indigenous Australians to the immigrant settlers (Department of Immigration and Citizenship 2013d). Burridge et al. (2009) find this event as lacking depth and having little involvement from parents and real connection with local cultural groups. Nevertheless, the efforts of the schools are recognised as some schools continue to play the role of linking cultural communities and cementing the social fabric, as well as a socialising agent for immigrant children.
Families, peers, schools, and media provide socialisation experiences that may not always be positive for children. Children face expectations from these different socialising agents and the process may be problematic for the child. . For example, the ability of an immigrant child experiencing new cultures (represented by his or her peers, school and media) to cope with and adjust to these new cultures may have implications for his or her ability to learn.
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3.3.1.4. Interactionist view of coping
Symbolic interactionism recognises that the child is an active player in the socialisation process. At the stages of the development of a child’s self and his or her socialisation, challenges are expected and experienced; more so if the child experiences a change in his or her situation such as immigration. Children in immigrant families may experience complex multidimensional challenges such as cultural conflicts (Abada, Hou, &
Ram 2008; Eng et al. 2008; Espiritu 2001; Woelz-Stirling, Manderson, Kelaher, &
Benedicto 2001) and educational difficulties (Gao & Gao 2009). As an active agent in his or her socialisation, the child also has the capacity to think about, respond to, and cope with these challenges. Generally speaking, coping refers to dealing successfully with challenges. Children’s ability to cope with, bounce back from, adapt or adjust to, and overcome difficult situations has serious implications on their daily lives. Children cope with personal concerns which Pollard (1985) referred to as primary interests-at-hand. These include concerns about maintenance of self-image, retention of dignity, control of stress, workload, enjoyment, and autonomy (Pollard 1985). Additionally, children also cope with structural positions in which they find themselves, and these refer to their membership in peer groups and status as learners in the school (Pollard 1985). Concerns emanating from these structural positions are what Pollard (1985) refers to as enabling interests-at-hand.
As social actors, children construct coping strategies when confronted with concerns and challenges.
Symbolic interactionism sees the importance of the concepts of self, identity, and socialisation in understanding coping in individuals (Pollard 2012; Woods 2012a, 1983;
Pollard 1982). Woods (1983) argues that children develop strategies that are in line with their interests which enable them to cope with their circumstances in school. These strategies may be supportive or oppositional, or indifferent to the aims of the teacher.
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These strategies are consistent with the modes of adaptation to the school culture; from
‘ingratiating conformity’ to ‘outright rebellion’ (Woods 1983, p. 102). Pollard and Filer
(1999) point to three strategies of coping responses of children in the school context that can be applied to children in transition situations, such as immigrants. These include strategies of conformity, negotiation, and rejection (Pollard 2012). Immigrant children who encounter new situations in a new school may find themselves applying, creating, or reinventing strategies to handle situations in a new environment. Research shows that coping is a process and resilient thinking can be learned (Pearson & Hall 2007; Reivich &
Shatte 2002; Masten & Coatsworth 1998). In this sense, coping skills and adaptive strategies can be seen as products of interaction as children experience family and school socialisation.
3.3.2. Some criticisms of the framework
Symbolic interactionism is considered as one of the most enduring theories of the twentieth and the twenty first century where it continues to thrive, and support and incorporate elements of other prominent theories (Carrothers & Benson 2003; Plummer
2000; Denzin 1992). It has been applied to a wide range of studies in education, family studies, cultural studies, psychology, consumer economics, social work, and immigration.
However, the theory has been criticised for being too micro, that is, it is restricted to individual-focussed aspects of social organisation and ignoring wider social constraints such as inequality and power. Despite this, symbolic interactionism has never been limited to individual or small group structures and interaction. Individuals also assume the perspectives of others which include groups, institutions, and society. Individuals shape society and society shape individuals (Charon 2010; Giddens 1991; Blumer 1969; Mead
1934).
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Symbolic interactionism recognises that interaction is interconnected with many levels of social life and individuals are surrounded by a range of networks, whether personal or impersonal, with their own specific norms (Crossley 2006; Plummer 2000).
The key interactive unit, ‘self’ is interspersed in what Becker (1982) referred to as a
‘recurring network of collective activity’. Plummer (2000) explained:
Thus whilst the self, and its core concern with “the other”… has to be woven into a dense web of progressively large-scale interactive layers of encounters, roles, groups, organizations, social worlds, settlement, societies, and civilisations that are constituted through joint actions; their interconnections are bases of negotiated orders; and hence social organization becomes “recurring network of collective activity” (Plummer 2000, p. 11).
Likewise, Castells (2000, p. 2) recognised that today’s ‘societies are increasingly structured around a bipolar opposition between the Net and the self,’ where the ‘Net’ signifies the interconnectedness of organisations in today’s information age, and the ‘self’ indicates affirmations of identity, either collective or individualistic. Hence, the level of analysis of symbolic interactionism starts from the ‘self’ and extends to the ‘self’ in ‘others’ as in the case of society or networks of relations, thus opening up a wider lens for analysis of the social world.
Symbolic interactionism has also been criticised for not being micro enough as it ignores psychological factors such as emotions and grief in human group life. However, research on symbolic interactionism has successfully applied the theory to emotions, i.e., grief, anxiety, and self-esteem (Turner & Stets 2005; Franks 2003; Barbalet 2002; Franks
& McCarthy 1989; Shott 1979). Emotions are essential to understanding human actions and behaviour. Emotions are embodied experiences that are interactional, social, linguistic, and are physiological processes that draw from human consciousness (Denzin 2007;
Denzin 1983). With the focus on the concepts of self and identity, people feel positive emotions when their identities are reaffirmed in a situation but on the other hand, they feel negative emotions when their identities are threatened or undermined (Poder 2009).
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Accordingly, emotional components of the self and the self in others are inseparable where feelings about situations that individuals experience are involved, and thus can be analysed using symbolic interactionism (Hage & Powers 1992).
Like any other perspective, symbolic interactionism is limited; however, its significance depends on how it will help in the understanding of individuals. How people, in the context of a social life, act upon things is one of the concerns of symbolic interactionism. The theory does not attempt to reduce human action and behaviour to predictable or determined factors based on people’s nature, or argue for class- or ethnic- based interpretations, but recognises that daily human activities are more complex than a single perspective can explain.
3.4. Researching Filipino immigrant children’s home and school experiences
This present study examines the home and school experiences and the attendant educational and cultural challenges of primary school children of Filipino immigrants in
South Australia. Figure 3.1 shows the socialisation contexts of the main focus of the study— the child of Filipino immigrants whose status and situation has been, is being, and will be shaped by his or her home culture and the school culture in the host country,
Australia which has been characterised as networked and multicultural.
The main socialisation contexts — the home and the school— are not only structural but they are also symbolic as they signify interactional processes. The home culture, represented by the family and the community from where it originated, that is, the
Filipino community, is where the child initially is socialised into his or her culture. The home is where the family enacts the process of primary socialisation. The family is where the child first learns a world, the values of the ethnic community, its language/s, and all other cultural aspects.
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Figure 3.1 Socialisation contexts of children of Filipino immigrants
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The concept of the ‘Filipino’ may be explained by these values and other aspects that characterise Filipino culture and contribute to the explanation of his or her identity as
Filipino. This study also argues for Filipino identities that are mutable.
Transfer between countries and between schools are challenging for children
(Osborn, McNess, & Pollard 2006). With the immigration of the family, the immigrant child encounter challenges related to conflicts between his or her home culture and the school culture in the host country. Many schools in South Australia are characterised as multicultural and these schools promote the shared values of the Australian society. These values are taught and propagated in the school and may challenge that of the child’s home-grown values. How the children of Filipino immigrants learn to cope with the challenges that he or she come face to face with is a key focus of this study.
3.5. Conclusion
Symbolic interactionism emphasises the importance of interpersonal social experiences, without ignoring the macro influences, that shape a child’s self and identity.
Events such as immigration shake the symbolic domains in which children live. Challenges emerge as a result of changing contexts that occur due to migration. Children encounter cultures different from their own. Symbolic interactionism is useful for this present study in identifying the symbolic elements that comprise the immigrant child’s home and school experiences, as well as cultural and educational challenges. Not only does the immigrant child bring his or her culture to school, he or she may bring home the school’s culture. This interactional process may challenge the immigrant child’s substantial self and determine the strength of his or her primary socialisation and substantial self. The interactional process may bring forth situational selves and complex selves and identities of the child as he or she makes sense of his or her new realities.
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The behaviour and actions of the immigrant child will have to match what others expect of him or her. These others may be members of his or her family or significant others or the generalised other, like peers, neighbours, and teachers. In this context and through interaction the child develops his or her self-concept, values, attitudes, and beliefs.
The school in South Australia is where the immigrant child will learn new sets of cultural values and other expectations. The school’s own culture may threaten or enhance existing values of the immigrant child. Moreover, using the English language as an important symbol in interaction may also become problematic for an immigrant child who comes from a non-English speaking background.
Symbolic interactionism is an appropriate framework for this study because it is concerned with childhood socialisation. Symbolic interactionism sees children as creative and active agents of their socialisation experiences. Children have capacities to define situations, make choices, act on situations, take perspectives and align their actions based on the response of others.
The symbolic interactionist theory focuses attention on the interaction of individuals with themselves and others through symbols such as words, gestures, roles, or any other social object that has meaning for individuals. With the micro-macro sociological divide blurred for symbolic interactionism, the theory is relevant because it effectively synergises societal and individual perspectives as it delves into the intersubjectivity of social life.
This present study fills a gap in research and draws attention to the circumstances of Philippine-born children of Filipino immigrants in South Australia by focussing on how they negotiate their sense of self and identity through socialisation. It also explores the immigrant children’s coping strategies and adaptive skills. Unlike the quantitative studies on immigrant children, this present study utilised symbolic interactionism to analyse their
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home and school experiences, and socialisation into new cultures and the challenges that come with these experiences, particularly those that confronted their sense of self and identity, and the other aspects of culture such as language, values, beliefs, and traditions, into which they have been socialised.
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Chapter 4 Methodology
4.1. Introduction
This chapter describes the research methodology used to examine the perspectives of children of Filipino immigrants regarding their experiences in the home, at school, with peers, and with media. Symbolic interactionism and qualitative methodology see experiences and interactions in human group life as sources of evidence. In line with symbolic interactionism which underpinned the present study, a qualitative methodology was utilised, through in-depth interviewing to focus attention on how the children of Filipino immigrants defined their situations, enacted complex selves and identities, experienced and coped with challenges, and dealt with other individuals and groups in strategic, reflective, and adjustive terms. Through the key interactionist concepts of self, others, perspective, socialisation, and coping along with the interactive technique of interviewing, the theoretical frame of symbolic interactionism and qualitative analysis were used in comprehending the Filipino immigrant children’s perspectives on their home and school experiences, educational and cultural challenges, and their responses to these challenges.
4.2. Symbolic interactionism and qualitative methodology
An epistemological stance is important because it affects the decision regarding the methodology to be used in research. Some epistemologies are well suited for specific methodologies from the data collection, analysis and interpretation to the report writing and assessment of the research quality. The symbolic interactionist frame through a qualitative methodology has been appropriate to this research because of the epistemic position of symbolic interactionism and qualitative methodology are both concerned with multiple realities, multiple ways of knowing, and people’s active participation in human group life.
Lichtman (2010) argues:
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Can you accept that there is no single reality that exists independent of your interpretation? I am not talking about the philosophical question of whether a branch dropping from a tree in the forest makes a sound. I am talking about social interactions among humans, or thoughts individuals have about a topic, or the inner workings of a unit in a small company. There are potentially several ways to interpret what you see or hear. As the researcher, you do the interpretation. Of course, your interpretation will carry more weight if the data you gather, the manner in which you organize the data, and the vehicle you use to present your interpretation support it (Lichtman 2010, p. 14).
Symbolic interactionism as a framework informed the qualitative design and implementation of this study on children’s perspectives on their home and school experiences. It also guided the collection, analysis, and interpretation of data from the interviews. Symbolic interactionism is closely connected to qualitative methodology since both emphasise complex, socially constructed, and multiple realities of human group life, as well as multiple ways of knowing and understanding reality. What people experience and do in the empirical world represent realities. Exploring and analysing these through the lens of symbolic interactionism fits well with qualitative methodologies. Blumer (1969) writes:
Symbolic interactionism is a down-to-earth approach to the scientific study of human group life and human conduct. Its empirical world is the natural world of such group life and conduct. It lodges its problems in this natural world, conducts its studies in it, and derives its interpretations from such naturalistic studies … Its methodological stance, accordingly, is that of direct examination of the empirical social world (Blumer 1969, pp. 47-48).
By direct examination, Blumer (1969) meant exploration and inspection of human group life. He explained that exploration refers to descriptive accounts of social life. On the other hand, inspection refers to the analysis of the descriptive accounts gathered from exploratory procedures (Blumer 1969). The qualitative methodology involving the collection of information through in-depth, semi-structured interviews with children of Filipino immigrants is consistent with the use of a symbolic interactionist framework and the attendant theoretical and practical parameters. Blumer (1969) suggested direct examination of human group life:
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[This] may involve direct observation, interviewing of people, listening to their conversations, securing life-history accounts, using letters and diaries, consulting public records, arranging for group discussions, and making counts of an item if this appears worthwhile. There is no protocol to be followed in the use of any one of these procedures; the procedure should be adapted to its circumstances and guided by judgment of its propriety and fruitfulness (Blumer 1969, p. 41).
In qualitative research, human group life is experienced and constructed from a subjective perspective and symbolic interactionism presupposes a subjective epistemology
(Gilgun 2013; Morrison 2012). Symbolic interactionism and qualitative methodology view children as participants in social life who are capable of ascribing meaning to their subjective experiences and acquired perspectives (Pollard 2012, 1990, 1982).
Filipino immigrant children’s perspectives on their experiences are considered subjective but their thinking and action, whether individual or collective, have meaning and may be understood from their point-of-view. Studying these perspectives required conducting interviews that provided information for examination of their interaction with their selves and others, as well as their socialisation experiences. The goal of using symbolic interactionism and qualitative methodology for this study is to provide a contextualised understanding of the children’s experiences through in-depth study of particular respondents. Qualitative methodology through symbolic interactionism described and interpreted the children’s involvements and participation in human group life through their own accounts of their experiences. Prus (2010) provided the guiding principle behind this present study and its use of qualitative methodology informed by symbolic interactionism. He writes:
People, as agents, deliberate and act with intention…people monitor, assess, and readjust their activities— even as they are in the process of developing particular lines of action... What is needed is more focused attention on the ways people in specific settings define, experience, and enact particular roles as well as how they deal with others in strategic, reflective, adjustive terms (Prus 2010, p. 502).
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In the main, qualitative research is not interested in establishing generalisability in contrast to quantitative studies. Being able to apply the interactionist theory and qualitative method to some phenomena and people’s subjective situations is one area where qualitative research has advantage over quantitative studies. Qualitative methods capture people’s shared meanings that are grounded in their social realities (Filstead 1981).
Studies utilising quantitative methods may be successful in generalising about cause and effects but they are limited when it comes to applying their generalisations and methods to other samples or populations. In-depth understanding of conditions of particular individuals and groups may have more significance than empirical generalisations that tend to reduce people’s circumstances into classifications. Operationalisation of certain concepts or propositions is inherent in research designed to develop generalisations about human group life and as such limits the meaningful application of such generalisations to particular groups. In accepting the complexities of social life and diversity as an assumed condition, this present study echoes Blumer (1969) in withholding empirical generalisations on the experiences of children of Filipino immigrants. He explains:
Actually, a little careful reflection shows that operational procedure is not at all an empirical validation of what is being operationalized. The concept or proposition that is being operationalized, such as the concept of intelligence, refers to something that is regarded as present in the empirical world in diverse forms and diverse settings … It is this deficiency, a deficiency that runs so uniformly through operational procedure, that shows that operationalism falls far short of providing the empirical validation necessary to empirical science … Very simply put, the only way to get this assurance is to go directly to the empirical social world— to see through meticulous examination of it whether one's premises or root images of it, one's questions and problems posed for it, the data one chooses out of it, the concepts through which one sees and analyzes it, and the interpretations one applies to it are actually borne out. (Blumer 1969, pp. 31-32).
The participants in this study were active agents, meaning-makers, and had the capacity to define and act on their situations, take on perspectives, and cope with challenges. Through face-to-face interviews, the children of Filipino immigrants shared their experiences in the home, with their peers, and at school. They described their
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experiences with media, particularly television viewing, gaming, and internet activities. The children also identified the challenges they experienced in the home, at school, and with peers. Likewise, they revealed how they responded to and coped with these challenges.
Their responses provided data for this research. The analysis of the data led to interpretations that were informed by symbolic interactionism.
4.3. The researcher as instrument in this study
As a researcher, I am conscious that I may have affected the behaviour of the participants, regardless of whether the participants were familiar to me or not. Researcher reflexivity refers to the process of recognising, examining, and understanding one’s own social conditions that can affect the research process. It also suggests a critical reflection on the practice and process of research, as well as, on my role as researcher (Lichtman
2010). It is important to recognise that the researcher is an instrument in the study. The social conditions that affect research include attributes of positionality such as cultural background, socio-economic status, class, gender, education, ethnicity, feelings, values, beliefs, social identities, and other factors that may be deemed important to the research project. These attributes are also referred to as reflexive screens (Marshall & Rossman
2011; Patton 2002a).
This means that even before I began the research, positionality is already established with an awareness of my attachment to and involvement with the children of
Filipino immigrants in particular and the Filipino community in general. Considering that this present study may raise some credibility issues, it is necessary to discuss my motivations for undertaking this research which have been mentioned in the self-reflection section of Chapter 1. To reiterate, as an educator and mother of school-aged children, I have been both inspired and disturbed by my children’s adjustment to Australian school life
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and its environment. Considering the multiplicity of selves and roles I possess, particularly as an educator and mother, I felt it necessary to learn more about their experiences as new migrants to the country, including the challenges they encountered, and to understand how other Filipino children in South Australia fared in this respect.
As researcher, I have acknowledged my role as instrument and my positionality.
As part of the self-reflection process, it is also relevant to clarify my assumptions in conducting this research. The study involved a small group of children. While comparisons of experiences were necessary to understand the children’s lives, the study did not aim to make generalisations about the home and school experiences of children of all Filipino immigrants. Similar situations among the children’s experiences were inevitably present but so were differences. Considering the complex and subjective realities of the primary school children in the study, generalisability was not intended.
Finally, it is important to recognise the relationship I have with the participants.
This relationship may be characterised by my positioning as an insider and outsider to the
‘world’ of the participants. The position signified by ‘researcher from the inside’ was referred to by Merton (1972) as a group member of a particular collective. I share most of the same social identities of the research participants— Filipino, Christian, and Tagalog speaker. These have been important in the study because it gained me easy access to the participants (Sikes & Potts 2008). Being able to speak the language of the participants was also useful in this study since the interaction in the interviews was less hindered by language barriers. This helped the participants to be open and less inhibited in providing the necessary information and significant insights about their experiences.
One criticism for this positionality in research is the problem of bias. Also criticised from the position of scientific criteria of objectivity, reliability, and validity, insider research is subjective by nature. Steps were taken to ensure systematic collection of information
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and analysis which will be discussed in a later section. Personal interest— through shared social identities with the participants— in an area of qualitative research is inevitable and bias is ‘not seen as negative’ (Lichtman 2013, p. 321). Bias and subjectivity in qualitative research is accepted and acknowledged (Lichtman 2013; Horsburgh 2003; Sword 1999) since objectivity is rarely accomplished by a researcher especially when his or her choice of methods and selection of ‘variables’ to be included or excluded in the study are considered. Breuer, Mruck, and Roth (2002) claim that the (social) science researches often give the impression of objectivity where results of the studies are independent from the researcher who produced the knowledge. Breuer, Mruck, and Roth (2002) argue:
Objectivity is what makes the difference between valid scientific knowledge and other outcomes of human endeavors and mind. On the one hand, there are many efforts to justify this perspective on epistemological and philosophical grounds. On the other hand, various practices are used to support and produce this idea of objectivity (a rather well-known and mundane example is the rhetorical strategy of avoiding the use of the first person pronouns in scientific texts). In their everyday scientific life almost all (experienced) researchers nevertheless “know” about the impact of personal and situational influences on their research work and its results. “Officially” and in publications theses [sic] influences are usually covered up—they are treated as defaults [sic] that are to be avoided (Breuer, Mruck, & Roth 2002, p. 246).
There are ways to demonstrate and ensure that positionality does not hinder systematic inquiry. Marshall and Rossman (2011) suggest at least two ways to ensure this.
One is sensitivity to the methodological literature on the self and on one’s social identities in conducting inquiry, interpreting data, and constructing the final narrative. Qualitative methodology offers a systematic process of research from conceptualisation of the problem to reporting the results of the study and presentation of propositions. The flow of the research that I undertook is illustrated in Figure 4.3, which is presented towards the end of this chapter.
In this present study, the complex process of conceptualising, framing, and focussing the problem began with a personal interest that reflected on my roles as mother
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educator, and migrant. Personal experiences with my own children’s adjustment in the wake of migration were transformed into formal inquiry by reviewing studies on migrant children’s experiences. Having framed research questions, decisions on an interpretivist epistemology, symbolic interaction theory, qualitative methodology, and interview method were arrived at after reviewing more literature on how to carry out the exploration and analysis of the research problem. Throughout this process, researcher reflexivity was exercised. As the researcher was intimately involved in both the process and product of the research endeavour (Horsburgh 2003), self-appraisal by the researcher was a characteristic feature during the study.
Accessing the participants of the study, conducting interview, transcribing and translating, analysing, and reporting of findings were all guided by the principles of qualitative methodology and buttressed by symbolic interactionism. In view of my position as an insider researcher and as an instrument in the study, this systematic inquiry into the perspectives on the experiences of children of Filipino immigrants was enhanced because the children comfortably shared their selves and experiences with someone who spoke their language and shared their culture, who was like a teacher, auntie, or sister to them, and who introduced herself as a student like them.
However, despite this apparent insiderness, I was also an outsider in the world of the participants. Some participants did not practise the same type of Christianity that I follow, while the others do. Some participants speak other Philippine languages that I cannot understand, so we had to compromise on using English and Filipino (Tagalog).
Some participants have a different socio-economic background from me. Some adult roles that I play like mother, teacher, among many others, position me as an outsider in their world. Thus, on the issue of insiderness in qualitative research, Adler (2004) mentioned that researchers are both insiders and outsiders in research situations. This necessitates a
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declaration of the researcher of his or her subjectivity to establish authenticity of the research. Peshkin (1988) reiterates that subjectivity and how a personal subjectivity audit of the researcher’s multiple selves can help address the issues that may intervene in relation to the researcher’s insiderness. Peshkin (1988) writes:
Researchers, notwithstanding their use of quantitative or qualitative methods, their research problem, or their reputation for personal integrity, should systematically identify their subjectivity throughout the course of their research. When researchers observe themselves in the focused way that I propose, they learn about the particular subset of personal qualities that contact with their research phenomenon has released. These qualities have the capacity to filter, skew, shape, block, transform, construe, and misconstrue what transpires from the outset of a research project to its culmination in a written statement. If researchers are informed about the qualities that have emerged during their research, they can at least disclose to their readers where self and subject became joined. They can at best be enabled to write unshackled from orientations that they did not realize were intervening in their research process (Peshkin 1988, p. 17).
Since I am the primary instrument of data collection and analysis, I carefully considered what information to include and how this was gathered. Recognising the impact of personal and situational influences on research work and results, I was wary not to predetermine how the information was organised and integrated into a meaningful and holistic piece. Principles for the exercise of caution and self-awareness in the research process have been suggested in order to address this dilemma of apparent researcher bias, which may reveal more about me than the researched. These include self-reflection and reflexivity (see Chapter 1), strategies for data collection and analysis, and ethical practices.
In terms of data collection, I was mindful of how the interviews were conducted, what types of questions were asked, how the interviews were recorded, and what observations were ultimately made (Bryant & Charmaz 2010). Having the same cultural background as the participants, I was able to perceive the meaning and significance of cultural symbols and language that emerged in the interviews.
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Questions for the interviews were appropriate for the age and the gender of the respondents. Some children required simpler phrasing of words— some were given familiar examples, such as toys, television shows, or places— to elicit more information and deeper responses to certain questions. Aware of the need to adjust to the respondents’ preferred language, the choice of words was carefully considered. Reflective probes were used to clarify and verify the responses given by the informants. The children were asked to clarify, explain, and give examples as necessary without causing discomfort.
Since the study was about the children’s perspectives concerning their home and school lives, their contribution to knowledge-building was properly acknowledged. This happened when the information on the purpose of the research was discussed with them.
Being sensitive to the participants’ comfort and confidence regarding the audio recording of their responses, informed consent from the parents and assent from the participants were obtained prior to the recording. Strategies for rapport and confidence building were exercised through proper introductions such as informing the respondent that
I am also a student and a Filipino. This rapport-building exercise and establishing interconnectedness between the interviewees and me helped in mutual understanding of most situations that were shared, leading to more accurate interpretations of information
(Marshall & Rossman 2011; Yeh & Inman 2007). However, I had to maintain vigilance in terms of over identification and over rapport with the participants. These could have also influenced the children’s behaviour in the conduct of the interview which might have affected the information gathering process.
Transcriptions of the taped interviews were verbatim, despite the fact that the responses were riddled with grammatical inaccuracies not to mention the silences and non-lexical utterances. The ‘ahs’ and ‘ahms’, ‘you know’ and ‘like’, were also captured to some extent. I was mindful that I was having a conversation with children and had to
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exercise patience in waiting for responses, while attempting to capture their insights. A detailed account of the children’s responses is provided in transcripts, but at the same time
I had to recognise that transcribing is an interpretive practice (Hammersley 2010; Bailey
2008; Minichiello, Aroni, & Hays 2008). Hammersley (2010) argues that audio- and video- recordings are major sources of data for qualitative research. Transcription of electronically recorded interviews involves a slowing down and reflexive re-routing of a process that otherwise occurs rapidly in the course of the interview and interaction. He further explains:
Electronic recording preserves a record of some of the data on which [sic] as participants or observers we might make sense of what is happening. Transcribing it involves presenting the words we can hear in written form, and providing descriptive resources for interpreting them in a much more deliberate fashion for the purposes of social science. However, even strict transcription cannot be carried out on its own: it relies on Verstehen, even though it is designed to allow a more reflective process of interpretation that will facilitate the building of social scientific knowledge. So, the recognition of words in what I called strict transcription is necessarily guided by interpretations of what is being communicated and what is being done (Hammersley 2010, p. 19).
For ethical reasons, names were changed in the transcripts. Names of exact places that directly identified a respondent, such as the name of school or church were also changed. Interviews conducted in Filipino/Tagalog were transcribed by me. I also did the subsequent translation into English of these transcripts. Doing the transcriptions and translation allowed me to interact with the data. For example, I had to interpret and decide whether or not pauses meant an end to the participant’s response, such that, the sense of what the participant said was already complete. Since we do not speak in paragraphs and we do not terminate our sentences by calling out the punctuations all the time (Marshall &
Rossman 2011), I had to make the judgement call when to terminate the spoken responses using the pauses and context of what was said as clues. Moreover, I also noted some gestures and paralanguage that were then integrated to the transcript to try to capture what was communicated and how it was communicated. These also added to the
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richness of the data which was important for interpretation. More about transcription is discussed in a later section.
Once the interview material had been collected and transcribed, its analysis had to be considered. There is no single and clear-cut way of analysing data in qualitative research (Gilgun 2013; Cohen, Manion, & Morrison 2011; Patton 2002a). Through qualitative analysis the information was transformed from the interviews into findings.
There was no recipe for this process, therefore the final outcome remained unique for each researcher (Gilgun 2013; Patton 2002a). However, useful guidelines were provided by experts in qualitative methodology (Marshall & Rossman 2011; Lichtman 2010; Connolly
2003; Patton 2002a). I followed a clear and systematic process that involved three generic stages— organising, analysing, and interpreting. These stages involved the following activities suggested by Cohen, Manion, and Morrison (2011): exploration and description, identification and categorisation of themes/codes, discovery of patterns, examination of individuals and idiographic features, exploration of nomothetic features, discovery of commonalities, similarities, and differences, examination of the application and operation of the same issues in different contexts, and interpretation and summarisation. A detailed discussion of data analysis is discussed in a later section.
The transcripts of the interviews were first read and responses were then classified according to the major socialisation contexts that were framed in the research question.
These socialisation contexts, which include the home in the Philippines, home in Australia, school in the Philippines, school in Australia, and media (internet) provided children with experiences and opportunities for learning. From these socialisation contexts, themes were identified by asking the question— what do the children learn in these contexts? Themes were categorised as a means of summarising and labelling them. These themes and
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categories were informed by concepts of symbolic interactionism such as self, others, socialisation, and coping.
However, in reflexive data analysis as Srivastava and Hopwood (2009) argue, themes, categories, and patterns do not emerge on their own. They are influenced by what the researcher wants to know and how he or she interprets what the data represent based on theoretical frameworks, subjective perspectives, ontological and epistemological positions, methodology, and intuitive understandings, making the process of data analysis highly reflexive (Srivastava & Hopwood 2009). In this present study, the perspectives of 30 primary school children of Filipino immigrants on their home and school experiences were informed by an ontological view of multiple complex realities of human group life that can be studied in multiple ways. This present study followed an interpretivist epistemology through a symbolic interactionist framework that viewed children as (inter)actors in human group life, capable of defining situations and developing lines of action according to or in reaction to the definitions, actions, and responses of others. Symbolic interactionism is consistent with a qualitative methodological approach that utilises in-depth interviewing as a method to examine children’s perspectives on their experiences.
Having resolved what material would be the focus of the research and how this material would be collected and analysed, there still remained the ethical considerations related to a study involving 30 children. These were to address the issues of anonymity, safety, and comfort of the respondent, as well as securing the confidentiality of their responses. The principle, primum non nocere or first, do no harm was strictly followed in this research. The length and frequency of interviews were planned in consultation with the parents and caregivers of the children. Other safety considerations like location of the interview sessions were also planned with the parents and caregivers. Most parents preferred their own homes for the interview.
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Guidelines for interviewing children prescribed by the Ethics Committee of the
University and the Department of Education and Children’s Services have been strictly complied with and implemented in this study. These include issues of informed consent from parents or caregivers and assent from the children. The purpose of the study was discussed with the parents and children. The importance of informed consent was also explained. The parents, caregivers, and children were given the assurance that names would be changed to protect the participants’ identity. Obtaining consent from the parents not only involved them signing a document but also allowing time for them to carefully consider participating in the research or not.
As part of ethical reflexivity, I needed to constantly assess the manner in which I conducted the interviews and how I related to the participants as well as their parents and legal guardians. A parent or guardian (legal-aged sibling) was present but uninvolved in the process. Being mindful of the participants’ understanding of me as a Filipino student doing research in education, I was able to position myself as a teacher, aunt, elder, or co- student/learner, even friend, implicating relational concepts that could have affected the interview in terms of power and influence, however the children saw me, at least initially.
As the interview progressed, my perceived ‘power’ somewhat diminished as the children felt comfortable with me. Some volunteered information by whispering secrets and demonstrating how they were punished when disobedient, others withheld information by telling me that they didn’t want to talk about it, which I had to respect and accept. Likewise, considering how the children might have seen that I presented myself as someone serious about protecting their identities, this may have paved the way for an open and uninhibited sharing of experiences by most of the participants. A discussion of the interview with each child is found in a later section.
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When interviewing young children, ethical reflexivity is also demonstrated through the exercise of empathy (Warin 2011; Guillemin & Gillam 2004). Through reflexive practice, the researcher is mindful of the respondents’ age, gender, and social status, to name a few, and as such questions have to be framed within such conditions (a list of interview questions is presented in Appendix A). Related to this reflexive practice is the awareness that no two informants were interviewed in exactly the same way. The sequencing of the questions depended on how the participant expressed interest in the question. Ethical reflexivity also entailed an awareness of not ‘over-probing’ in eliciting responses involving emotional issues. Although such responses may add to the richness of the data, protecting the participant from harm or undue risk in the conduct of the interview must be exercised by pre-empting potential problems. For example, when a participant disclosed the recent demise of his father, I asked if he wanted to dispense with the topic. The participant said it was ‘ok’ to discuss it. I empathised with the participant’s loss and sadness and I offered words of encouragement. The way the participant put on a brave face while sharing his loss was encouraging. I felt this was a demonstration of his coping ability.
My role as an instrument in the research necessitated reflections on my positionality in the research, my exercise of reflexivity in data collection and analysis, and my ethical conduct and responsibilities. The next section presents the 30 children of
Filipino immigrants who participated in the research and gives an account of the interview experience.
4.4. The research participants
A purposeful sampling procedure was used for the study to identify the children who were respondents. This intentionally selected the respondents and sites to accomplish the aims of the research (Creswell 2009; Patton 2002a). The type of purposeful sampling
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strategy that was found useful in developing an understanding of the experiences of children of Filipino immigrants was ‘homogenous’ sampling in which the children were members of a subgroup that had the defining characteristics (Creswell 2009). The criteria for selection of participants in the study were the following: children must be Philippine- born to qualify as first generation immigrant, aged 8-12 years and enrolled in primary schools in South Australia, whether in public, independent, or Catholic schools. Both parents of these children must also be Philippine-born. Thirty (30) primary school children of Filipino immigrants were included in the study. Some children came to South Australia as immigrant settlers with the rest of their family members, while others arrived to join a parent who was already working in South Australia. Most of the Filipino children had completed at least one year of schooling in the Philippines. One child experienced schooling in the United Kingdom prior to coming to Australia. Although this cohort of children of Filipino immigrants could also be referred to as the 1.5 generation (Zhou 1997), for the purpose of this research, they were designated as ‘first generation immigrants,’ according to the definition of the Australian Bureau of Statistics (Katz & Redmond 2009).
In view of the ethical considerations, which restricted the amount of information that could be gathered and specified regarding the participants, the profile of the participants is shown in Table 4.1 to establish that they met the selection criteria that provided pertinent data for this study. The respondents were assigned alpha-numeric symbols for identification. The 14 male participants (47%) were assigned numerical values while the 16 female respondents (53%) were assigned the letters of the alphabet. The mentioning of names by the participants, such as classmates, teachers, siblings, or relatives is inevitable; hence, the names referred to by the participants were changed.
Pseudonyms for schools and other places were also used to protect the participants’ identities.
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The group of Filipino immigrant children who were attending primary school, whether at government, independent, or Catholic schools, were accessed through contacts with the Filipino community groups in South Australia and through recommendations from
Filipino friends, colleagues, acquaintances, and other ‘knowledgeable people’ (Cohen,
Manion, & Morrison 2011). A consulate official of the Philippines, a respected elder of the
Filipino community, and church leaders were examples of these ‘knowledgeable people’.
They were also ‘gatekeepers’ of the community. These people had the power to withhold access to respondents or situations for the purpose of research (Minichiello, Aroni, & Hays
2008). Parents of children were also gatekeepers because they made decisions for children informants whether to allow them to participate or not in the research (University of
London Institute of Education 2012; Heath, Brooks, Cleaver, & Ireland 2009).
Table 4.1 Selected characteristics of the participants
Characteristics/ Attributes Participants Total (n=30) %
Gender Female A, D, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, J, K, L, M, N, O, P 16 53 Male 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14 14 47
12 B, J, L, M, 10, 11, 13, 14 8 27 Age 11 1, 3, 6, 8, 9, G, N, 7 23 10 C, O, 4, 5 4 13 9 A, F, I, K, 2, 7 6 20 8 D, E, H, P, 12 5 17
7 B, J, L, M, 1, 3, 10, 11, 13, 14 10 33 Year 6 G, N, 6, 9 4 13 level 5 C, O, 4, 5, 8 5 17 4 F, I, K, 2, 7 5 17 3 A, D, E, H, P, 12 6 20
Type of Government B, C, D, E, F, G, I, J, M, N, O, P, 21 70 school 2, 4, 5, 6, 7, 9, 10, 11, 14 Catholic A, K, L, 1, 3, 13 6 20 Independent H, 8, 12 3 10
Figure 4.1 shows how the children of Filipino immigrants were purposefully accessed and selected for the study through the gatekeepers of the Filipino community.
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Filipino Consular Representative
Filipino religious G leader A T E K Researcher’s Filipino Parents/ Filipino Researcher E friends/colleagues caregivers children E P E
R Filipino family friend S of immigrant child
Filipino community elder/officer/grocer
Figure 4.1 Gaining access to participants through gatekeepers
4.5. Interviewing
In-depth interviews were utilised to gather the children’s perspectives on their home and school experiences in South Australia. This technique is widely used in qualitative research and is well suited for symbolic interactionism. As has been mentioned in the earlier section, symbolic interactionism is a pertinent approach to children’s group life since it suggests that children’s worlds can be examined through qualitative inquiry such as in-depth interviewing (Blumer 1969). A commitment to understanding their world required listening to them talk about their experiences and enquiring about their perspectives.
Through interviews, the children of Filipino immigrants in this study provided insights into how they defined and interpreted their situations and experiences.
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Blumer (1969) saw participant observation as a method to examine people’s life worlds. However, I did not fully utilise such method because in-depth interview met my time and resource constraints. Only unobtrusive observations were made.
There are no set rules for conducting in-depth interviews (Minichiello, Aroni, &
Hays 2008). Considering each individual informant was unique with his or her own cultural, educational, and economic backgrounds, each interview with a participant was a distinct experience for me. Different social interactions happened in every interview session and with every participant. One approach to a participant was not necessarily applicable to another. I practised flexibility and reflexivity to integrate the experience with the information gathered in order to provide an accurate representation of the process.
Certain principles have been suggested on how to do interviews in qualitative research (Marshall & Rossman 2011; Lichtman 2010; Minichiello, Aroni, & Hays 2008;
Holstein & Gubrium 2003). Figure 4.2 shows the process I followed for the interviews. I organised these principles in the following way, an initial protocol, the interview situation, and an exit protocol.
Prior to the actual interviews, advertisements, and invitations were sent to the gatekeepers, especially the parents of the prospective participants. Follow-up meetings were made and appointments for the interview dates were set. Most parents preferred their homes as the venue for the interviews and cited comfort and convenience as the main reasons. Conducting the interview in the home of the children was non-threatening for them. Also, I seized this opportunity since this allowed me to unobtrusively discover certain symbols in the children’s homes that indicated aspects of their culture. For example, some homes had icons like Jesus Christ and Mary; others had framed ‘God Bless Our Home’ or decorative Bible verses. These were placed on the wall, on a small table, or in an open shelf. These symbols gave ideas about the type of religion (Christianity) of the family. On
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occasions, I used these symbols (as well as others) in the child’s home as conversation pieces to put the participant at ease.
Initial protocol The interview situation Exit protocol
Discussion with parent/s, Rapport building with Soliciting additional caregiver/s, and children participant information, regarding purpose of Explaining anonymity and questions, and research and ethics protocol confidentiality comments from Explanation of complaints Informing about recording participant procedure and giving data the interview sheet for complaints Questioning Thanking for participation Reading, signing of consent Clarifying form by parents Probing Reading, signing of assent form by child participant
Figure 4.2 The interview process
Further pre-interview preparation included the distribution of information sheets on the purpose of the study and also the complaints process to the parents or caregivers. I advised the parents that they could withdraw from the study at any time or lodge a complaint if they felt that confidentiality had been breached. After discussing with the parent the purpose of the research and signing of the consent form, the assent form was read by the child in the presence of a parent or caregiver. The assent form was used as a way of affirming young children’s active participation in this research. The child was asked if he or she understood what he or she read. The child acknowledged by signing the form unless further explanations of the process were required. Interviews were recorded and lasted for approximately one hour. The preferred language of the child was used. Most often, it was the English language and on several occasions, a combination of English and
Filipino (Tagalog-based), and occasionally, the use of non-academic Taglish. At least one
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parent was in close proximity during the actual interview. The parent was informed that the child was expected to answer on his or her own.
Piaget (1972, p. 37) believed, ‘A child will always answer his or her question correctly.’ Asking the children questions and drawing out responses from them involved challenges, even when I explained that there were no right or wrong answers. I found it helpful to try to ‘think like a child’ in phrasing the words of the interview questions. One strategy I used was encouraging the child to repeat the question in his or her own words before giving me a reply. This way, the child informant could give more meaningful responses.
The children had varying attention spans and keeping them interested was a challenge. Ethical reflexivity and flexibility in managing the informants was done. I had to remind myself that it might be my short attention span and impatience which could hinder the information-gathering process. Relating a question to something more familiar to the children or to an object was a useful strategy as much as showing my interest in the answers they gave. For example, when I asked a participant to tell me about what he or she liked doing at home and there was a very long pause, I sometimes pointed to a gaming console found near the television set and asked the participant about it.
While the interview process was seen as subjective, both the participant and I also engaged in an intersubjective interaction (Cohen, Manion, & Morrison 2011) where we discussed interpretations of the places we lived or visited in the Philippines and how we felt about various situations in the Philippines. One example was when some children mentioned a vehicle (tricycle) found in the Philippines that they missed here in Australia. It was accessible almost any time of the day. We shared the meanings we had for this particular vehicle and one participant echoed what I thought was the inconvenience of not having a private vehicle here in South Australia so that we had to rely on the bus service.
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Although I had control of the interview situation, at the outset, armed with an interview protocol and schedule, the interaction was still spontaneous. As time progressed, the interviewee began to exercise his or her own influence by filtering or withholding information, overstating successes, down-playing failures, being unresponsive, or giving either socially desirable or shocking responses. For example, an unresponsive interviewee would barely talk even when he or she found the question to be clear or that the question was not answerable by ‘yes’ or ‘no’. A shrug was often given as a response which compelled me to follow-up on the question by rephrasing it or by shifting to Filipino.
In this situation, I had to remind the interviewee that there were no right or wrong answers.
This was an evidence of the shifting power relations between the participant and me.
The creation of knowledge and understandings between the researcher and the research participants is not value-free. As Dean and Whyte (1958) suggest about the subjective nature of qualitative interviewing and interactionist paradigms:
The informant’s statements represent merely the perception of the informant, filtered and modified by his cognitive and emotional reactions and reported through his verbal usages… What does the informant’s statements reveal about his feelings and perceptions and what inferences can be made from them about the actual environment or events he has experienced? (Dean & Whyte 1958, pp. 34, 37)
The children were active participants in this research and may have transformed and elaborated on their experiences. However, as I report the children’s opinions, ideas, representations, and theories, the research community is provided with an opportunity to reflect upon the meaning of the children’s perspectives.
I was aware of the cues that the children could be elaborating on their experiences. Being mindful of the very nature of the interview as a social situation, I recognised that the children revealed how they saw themselves and their experiences. I had to bear in mind that children’s perspectives would inevitably be biased and subjective.
These perspectives would produce information about the respondents as they related to
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and reflected on the questions about their experiences in the home, at school, his or her educational and cultural challenges, and coping strategies. Shaw (Kvale & Brinkmann
2009) describes what the interviewee’s own stories reveal. He argues that ‘rationalisations, fabrications, prejudices, exaggerations are quite as valuable as objective descriptions, provided of course, that these reactions be properly identified and classified’ (Shaw 1966, p. 3). Children’s subjective experiences found in this study were construed as meaningful observations.
Through cross-check questions and rephrasing the same questions in the interview session, I obtained the children’s explanations on accounts relevant to the study, for instance, an interviewee was asked to explain why he or she felt that schooling was easier in Australia than in the Philippines. Cross-checking was accomplished through persistent examination for consistency of narrations in other parts of the interview or clarifying seemingly inconsistent and previously stated responses (Minichiello, Aroni, &
Hays 2008). In this study, for example, after the interviewee stated that he or she felt that schooling was easier in Australia, the same question (on why schooling is easier in
Australia) was asked when the interviewee started to describe difficult academic subjects in his or her primary school.
4.5.1. The interview questions
Interviews revolved around the research questions (Chapter 1) and the research aims specified in Appendix A. The corresponding interview questions were designed to allow the research to gain an understanding of the perspectives of primary school children of Filipino immigrants on their home and school experiences in South Australia, their educational and cultural challenges, and their responses to the challenges. To elicit responses from younger children and for the sake of age-appropriateness, the questions were rephrased, restated, or translated to suit each child. In the process of the child
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describing his or her home and school experiences, his or her media consumption, and his or her challenges, follow-up questions were asked to clarify each child’s responses for deeper understanding of these experiences. The questions were not asked sequentially to allow for free narrative after one question was raised. With some participants, we started talking about their school, with others their home, and with some, the Philippines. The interview questions were structured around two main areas, the home and the school.
Questions about the children’s peer and media experiences were allowed to emerge from the responses using the prompt questions and then explored further as the interview ensued. Some of the children’s experiences with media were also interconnected with the home and school contexts.
4.6. Transcribing and translating
Interviews were transcribed. Many qualitative researchers view transcribing audio and visual information as an interpretive act that involves value judgements (Marshall &
Rossman 2011; Hammersley 2010; Lichtman 2010; Bailey 2008; Green, Franquiz, &
Dixon 1997; Poland 1995). Bailey (2008) notes:
Decisions about transcribing are guided by the methodological assumption underpinning a particular research project, and there are therefore many different ways to transcribe the same data. Researchers need to decide which level of transcription detail is required for a particular project and how data are to be represented in written form (Bailey 2008, p. 130).
There are no definitive rules for transcribing audio-recorded interviews but
Hammersley (2010) provided some insights that I found useful. He cautions that to hold the view that transcripts are constructed is misleading (Hammersley 2010). Transcripts are not homogenous in character since they contain both strict transcription and description.
Strict transcription refers primarily to those parts of a transcript where the words from the recording were written down in the script of some language. An example would be
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some English words that had deviant spellings or combined Filipino and English words that did not follow any grammatical and lexical rules but nevertheless had meaning that both the interviewee and I understood. I captured many of these in a strict transcription sense, that is, I did not make any attempt to correct the spelling. However, in the translation that I provided, these lexical and grammatical errors were corrected. Thus, this reinforces what
Hammersley (2010) referred to as transcription that involves constructional work and
Verstehen.
Description, according to Hammersely (2010) involved who were talking, the manner by which the interviewee was speaking, and other non-verbal behaviours.
Description does not only involve words that were spoken but characterisation of actions as the interviewee spoke. Whispering is one example of this action which I referred to in an earlier section and in the transcripts.
I transcribed 75% of the interviews and the rest were done by a colleague who had experienced transcription work. By transcribing at least the first five interviews, I became familiar with the information and issues arising from converting the audio to text
(Minichiello, et al. 2008). In the process of transcription, I was also immersed in preliminary data interpretation, which allowed me to instruct a transcriber as to the level of details required in the transcripts. The transcription involved verbatim conversion of recorded conversation. Also included in the data were notes that the interviewer made before, during, and after the interview situation. The transcription process followed what
Hammersley (2010) suggested about strict transcription and description. As previously mentioned, some non-lexical utterances were included.
Hence, as an interpretive act, the process of transcription was not just a technical and mechanical activity. It considered the complexity of interactions happening in the interview, which necessitated my sensitivity to both the overt and hidden cues in the audio
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recording as these were helpful in the analysis of the children’s perspectives on their experiences.
As mentioned earlier, I translated some interview transcripts that were in Filipino language. I enclosed in brackets the original wording of the transcript and placed it in a smaller font size than the ‘cleaned-up’ text. I also had to apply syntactical and grammatical conventions to allow for a more coherent reading of the text in the report. This was done to comprehend and focus attention on what was said by the participants. Although an interpretive process played out in the translation of the texts from the Filipino language to
English, a commitment to understanding the experiences of the children of Filipino immigrants guided me in the translation of transcripts.
4.7. Data analysis
This study examined the home and school experiences of children of Filipino immigrants. It also investigated the children’s experiences with media focussing on activities such as television viewing, gaming, computer time, and internet usage. The study also identified educational and cultural challenges and how the children developed responses to the challenges and strategies for coping with them.
Informed by symbolic interactionism, I adopted an eclectic approach to data analysis. As mentioned earlier, since there is no single and precise way of analysing data, various data analysis activities prescribed by Cohen, et al. (2011) were undertaken in three stages— organising, interpreting, and theorising. Since qualitative data analysis is a recursive process, these stages were not necessarily linear and sequential. These stages in my data analysis process were similar to what Connolly (2003) referred to as the three phases of qualitative analysis which is founded on grounded theory methodology (Glaser &
Strauss 1967). These stages were the generative phase, interpretive phase, and theorising
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phase. For my purposes and using symbolic interactionism as framework for data analysis, I followed these three stages: organising, interpreting, and theorising.
Organising the interview transcripts involved focussed reading and memoing to get sense out of the data. It also involved a representation of the children in graphic form to present some demographic characteristics like gender, age, year level, type of school, and religion. These relevant data provided background information on the participants. In view of ethical considerations, which restricted the amount of information that could be gathered and specified regarding the profile of participants, selected attributes of the participants have been presented. As part of this organising stage, responses were initially classified according to the four contexts of socialisation, as presented in the research questions— home, school, peers, and media. These socialisation contexts also formed the data chapters, with the school and peers together in one chapter.
Themes, codes, and concepts are used interchangeably in most qualitative research. For the purposes of this research, I used keywords like family, chores, friends, school activities, difficulties, and internet, gaming, as themes. These themes were coded from the transcripts and categorised (Lichtman 2010). From these themes or codes, patterns and concepts were identified. I used concepts to refer to the elements in the research questions. Some overlaps of references to the socialisation contexts and some concepts were inevitable since qualitative analysis is a recursive process. There is no definitive coding process but my intention was to organise, categorise, and synthesise the codes into concepts to answer the research question. Symbolic interactionism provided me with concepts that needed to be coded in the transcriptions. These included selves, roles, identities, perspectives, significant and generalised others, reference groups, socialisation, and coping.
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After these organising activities, I started the initial analysis of the data. The process, however, was not strictly sequential as it was impossible to identify the themes and categories in a single review. Since the organising process in qualitative data is iterative I had to immerse myself in the data to make sense of the coded themes. For example, having selected and organised the responses of the participants that went into the specific socialisation contexts mentioned earlier— home, school, peers, media— I identified and coded themes. For the home context, I coded, as theme, the participants’ mention of kinds of Filipino dishes and delicacies that they were either fond of or they missed having in Australia. These Filipino dishes and delicacies were given the category
‘food culture’ which was found to be related to significant others (concept) like grandparents (code/theme) who socialised the participants into Filipino food culture
(category).
Interpreting the interviews entailed reading and re-reading of all the interview transcriptions. Re-coding and re-categorising words and phrases in the transcribed interviews were necessary to align them with the given concepts. As mentioned earlier, these concepts were determined a priori by utilising symbolic interactionism. Part of the interpreting stage was to rework the data to recognise embedded concepts. Thus, a comparison between the responses of the participants was necessary to see patterns, similarities and differences, consistencies and inconsistences. The purpose of the interpretive process was to confirm the codes against the symbolic interactionist concepts but not to force the data to fit the interactionist theory. In the example on food given earlier, similarities were found between participants but so too were differences. Through constant comparative analysis (Fram 2013; Glaser & Strauss 1967), it was discovered that most participants expressed a fondness and longing for such Filipino food not only because of the taste of the food but also what it represented to them. For most participants, food was
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associated with the love, care, and kindness of grandparents and relatives who prepared these foods for them. The participants brought with them to Australia some socialisation to
Philippine food culture by significant others and they still exhibited strong preferences for these Filipino dishes.
From themes to categories, categories to concepts, and concepts to explanations, the relationship between the data and symbolic interactionist theory developed. This led to the last stage of my analysis, the theorising stage, where symbolic interactionism was applied to the propositions generated from the information on the perspectives of children of Filipino immigrants on their home and school experiences. Going by the example of
Filipino food earlier, one proposition suggested itself: The stronger the socialisation of significant others of children to a particular food culture, the greater the likelihood of preferences for these foods.
The above-mentioned qualitative analysis process is illustrated in Figure 4.3.
Although presented as a flow concept, linearity of the process cannot be assumed. This diagram also shows the whole research process from the inception of the research problem to conclusion. The broken arrows signify recursive instances.
4.8. Addressing validity and reliability in qualitative research
I used symbolic interactionist theory through qualitative methodology using interviews to elucidate the perspectives of children of Filipino immigrants on their home and school experiences. Epistemologically, this present study assumes multiple ways of knowing and multiple perspectives, in the manner of symbolic interactionism and qualitative methodology. Both approaches also presuppose a subjective and interpretivist epistemology. Having said this, how can validity and reliability, concepts that are closely associated with quantitative studies, address the credibility of this research?
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Ethical considerations; clearance application Identification of the problem from HREC and DECS; Perspectives of primary school children preparation of of Filipino immigrants on their home and information and school experiences in South Australia complaints sheets, consent and assent forms
Review of literature
1. What are their experiences at home? 2. What are their experiences in school? 3. What are their Formulation of the experiences with media? research questions 4. What cultural and educational challenges do they face? 5. How do they respond to and cope with these Decision to use symbolic challenges? interactionism and qualitative methodology
In-depth, semi-structured interviewing Identification of participants; referral/permission from gatekeepers Transcription; translation
Scheduling; actual interviews (Approximately one hour each)
Qualitative data analysis: Organising Interpreting Theorising
Conclusion, recommendations, direction for future research
Figure 4.3 The research process
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Validity and reliability criteria have been re-fashioned for the purposes of qualitative research. The concept of validity has been referred to as believability of a statement or knowledge claim (Polkinghorne 2007). Reliability, on the other hand, has been included in the criteria of trustworthiness of qualitative research, particularly the information and concepts in naturalistic inquiry (Shenton 2004). Lincoln and Guba (1985) proposed four criteria related to evaluating the validity or trustworthiness of qualitative information and analysis: transferability, dependability, credibility, and confirmability
(Trochim 2006; Lincoln & Guba 1985). These criteria were all addressed in this study. A checklist in Appendix C shows how these criteria have been provided for in this study.
In terms of transferability, although the research does not attempt to generalise for the whole population of Filipino immigrant children in South Australia, the theory and method may be applied in other locales and cultural settings. Being able to apply the theory and methods to other situations and research subjects may address the issue of external validity. Concerning transferability, I provided background information to give context for subsequent studies of the same phenomenon.
Related to the issue of reliability in quantitative research or the repeatability and replicability of results, qualitative research focuses on dependability such that the results account for the changes that occur in the setting. Dependability of the study also shows how these changes affected the approach of the research (Trochim 2006). In terms of dependability, it is important to ascertain that the research developed from systematic and rigorous practice. I did this by describing the implementation of the research design on a strategic level, discussing the operational detail of data gathering and what was done in the field, and appraising the project reflectively in terms of the effectiveness of the processes of inquiry (Shenton 2004).
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The key criterion of credibility may be analogous to the criteria of internal validity in quantitative research. By adopting a specific theory like symbolic interactionism and a method like interviewing, this criterion was addressed. Strategies in ensuring that responses were honest and not mere fabrications addressed concerns about ‘internal validity’ of the findings. Examination of previous research findings through a review of related studies was undertaken. This process situated the current research under a credibility check in the existing body of knowledge (Shenton 2004).
Finally, confirmability refers to the degree to which the results of the study can be substantiated by others. Expert and peer reviews have been applied as strategies to minimise the effects of investigator bias (Marshall & Rossman 2011; Shenton 2004) and thus establish confirmability of the research findings. The present study was reviewed by critical others to check the data findings and interpretations. The research supervisors, reader-colleagues, and even the transcribers played the role of critical others who attentively questioned the findings and analyses of the data. Likewise, a reflexive commentary about the research undertaking (in Chapter 1) gave me an opportunity to admit the limitations of the study and to express my positioning in the study. This is another provision I made as a researcher to address confirmability. Finally, the data and analysis procedures are available for an audit trail (Marshall & Rossman 2011; Akkerman, Admiraal,
Brekelmans, & Oost 2008; Trochim 2006; Lincoln & Guba 1985). I ensured that data exists in support of every interpretation and the interpretations were consistent with the data. All raw data which included audio-recordings, transcripts, notes, and memos have been kept to allow for an audit that would link the data to the analysis.
Figure 4.4 provides a diagrammatic representation of this research. It presents what has been discussed in the previous chapters and subsequently, the research data on the experiences of participants in the home, at school, and with media.
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Figure 4.4 The study on Filipino children’s perspectives
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4.9. Conclusion
This chapter presented the qualitative methodology used to examine the perspectives on home and school experiences of South Australian primary school children of Filipino immigrants. Symbolic interactionism as a theoretical framework fits well with qualitative methodology since both approaches agree that there are multiple and complex realities in human group life, and as such, the social life of children. With these realities, there are multiple ways of knowing as well. Symbolic interactionism and qualitative methodology do not see subjectivity as a hindrance to systematic inquiry. The researcher as instrument in the study recognised her positionality as both an insider and outsider connected to the children’s social worlds, practised both reflexivity and ethical responsibility. Qualitative methodology and symbolic interactionism suggest interviewing as one method to disclose children’s perspectives on their experiences. After conducting interviews, the audio-recordings were transcribed and these were the sources of data for analysis. An eclectic qualitative data analysis was then applied in three stages— organising, interpreting, and theorising. These stages are recursive and not linear. By grounding the data in symbolic interaction concepts propositions were developed. In terms of addressing validity and reliability, the present study followed the four criteria prescribed by Lincoln and Guba (1985) for qualitative research: credibility, transferability, dependability, and confirmability.
Chapters 5, 6, and 7 present the analysis of the socialisation experiences of participants in three contexts— home, school, and media.
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Chapter 5 Perspectives on home socialisation
5.1. Introduction
This present chapter examines the home as a context for the socialisation of children of Filipino immigrants. In the context of the investigation, socialisation experiences in the home (a process of learning that involved interaction with family members) is informed by familial interaction both in the Philippines and in Australia. A distinctive feature of the discussion on socialisation is the children’s bicultural, or in some cases, multicultural experiences. Through these interactions and activities in the home, the children learned about family relationships, language, food, religion, routines, responsibilities, and rules.
Some of the above-mentioned features reflected aspects of Filipino culture that the children’s significant others (parents and other family members) shared with them.
Analysing the children’s perspectives on an array of home experiences provided an understanding of the socialisation processes that these children of Filipino immigrants underwent to make sense of immigration to Australia. Moreover, it also provided insight into how this socialisation process contributed to the children’s ability to cope with the challenges they encountered.
The analysis of data on the children’s home experiences is organised in two sections. The first section of the chapter examines the reasons for migration to Australia from the individual accounts of the children. Finding out about some of the issues and challenges that the children experienced in the Philippines and the images they had about
Australia was important to understand how they made sense of migration.
The second section explores how the children learnt about their selves and identities through interaction with parents, siblings, and significant others. Highlighting their socialisation experiences in the home in South Australia allowed for an understanding of how the children made sense of their situation as migrants. The contextual features that
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gave rise to challenges encountered in the home and strategies the children employed as coping responses were also analysed. The children’s coping responses underscored insights into the children’s selves and their ability to form perspectives (take the role and attitudes of others).
5.2. Reasons for coming to Australia
In exploring the reasons for migration to Australia, it is important to highlight the experiences of the children in the Philippines. The key issues pertained to living conditions in the Philippines and included environmental and health risks as well as concerns about personal safety. Significant others like parents and grandparents made the decision to migrate to Australia. The interactionist concepts that were useful in analysing how the children made sense of immigration included the role and perspective of significant others, anticipatory socialisation, reference groups, and socialisation to life in South Australia.
5.2.1. Living conditions in the Philippines
Most of the participants and their families came from urbanised centres in the
Philippines. Compared with rural areas, living in urbanised areas provided them with facilities and services like housing, water, and electricity, not to mention better schools and recreation areas like malls and parks. However, some children living in urban areas identified certain conditions related to urban life that meant living in an overcrowded area with environmental pollution posing health risks. Participant J mentioned there was too much traffic in the Philippines, Participants C and D referred to the noise and loud singing where they lived.
Participant J: There’s too much of traffic.
Participant C: A bit noisy... All the parades, all the people like shouting [in the streets].
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Participant D: They’re all singing for 24 hours... There’s lots of crazy peoples there... coz they’re on the street and they always fight peoples [sic], that’s all.
Noise, water, air, and land pollution affect many Philippine urban centres.
Participant 13 suffered frequent asthma attacks in the Philippines but these were less frequent after he came to Australia. The brothers, Participants 6 and 7 had dengue fever.
Participant 6: In the Philippines there are lots of mosquitoes, we had dengue, the doctor said if it happens to us again, we might die. (Kasi sa Pilipinas malamok, kasi na-dengue na kami...sa doctor, pag naulit pa po daw, baka mamatay.)
Participant 7: Lots of mosquitoes, we cannot go out of the house without putting on mosquito-repellent lotion. (Maraming lamok...wag lalabas pag hindi nag-lotion.)
Dengue outbreaks happen in the Philippines almost all year round and peak around the rainy months of July and August (Department of Health 2012). Many Filipino children are at risk, during these times, of contracting the disease, which on occasions result in death. Two brothers (Participants 6 and 7) understood their situation in the event of contacting the disease again and expressed relief that in South Australia, the risk was minimised.
Participant 4 referred to undesirable elements in the Philippine society as reasons for moving to Australia. When asked how he came to know that, he said he saw it in the news and his parents told him. Participant 10 knew that everyday life could be compromised by criminal behaviour.
Participant 4: Because there’re floods, kidnappers, terrorists, and ah what’s this called, insects [mosquitoes]... Dengue... I saw in the news.
Participant 10: What is bad about the Philippines is that sometimes there are lots of thieves and robbers as well as disasters in the news. (Yung bad naman po sa Pilipinas, minsan po maraming nagnanakaw, maraming magho-hold up, pati po maraming disgrasya na na-aano sa news.)
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Participant 13 expressed a similar concern regarding personal safety.
Participant 13: With all the stresses in the Philippines like I don’t know in the next day you could lose your bank account or something like that. It doesn’t make you feel like you are safe all the time.
Such undesirable living conditions in the Philippines were either personally experienced by the children or experienced by their relatives, neighbours, and peers. The children also learnt about these conditions from the media. For most children, these observations and experiences were connected with their family’s decision to migrate to
Australia.
5.2.2. Influence of significant others
Children were rarely consulted when families migrated. These children readily accepted the decision to move to Australia by taking the perspective of significant others, particularly parents and grandparents. Children did not have much choice in the matter.
Although some (D, F, 5, 6, and 7) were not informed initially why the family would be moving to Australia, others discovered the plan to migrate through parents and grandparents who announced the decision while they were in the Philippines. For
Participants A and M it was their grandmothers who brought their families to Australia, while for others it was their parents who brought them. For many participants, migrating to
South Australia as a family unit (1, B, C, G, J, 10, 11, 12, 13, 30), promised a better future.
Participant A: Lola...she was the one who [brought] me here... Because more work and study... she's the one who planned it.
Participant 1: We moved here because we don’t have enough money to pay the tuition fee for [school], and that’s why we moved here because life is much easier and easier to spend money... I asked and they told me that life is easier here and bright future.
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Participant 8: I didn’t realise that because my mum just tell [sic] us that she’s going somewhere else …then by the time we know [sic] that, my grandfather and my grandmother said to me that [we] are going to Australia.
Participant O: We came here because dad found a job here. Mum said we would be in a better life if we moved here.
Family members played a crucial role in making the children understand this critical time in their lives. Parents and grandparents who found employment and experienced life in Australia helped the children make sense of leaving behind relatives and friends in the Philippines. For some, either one or both parents found work in South
Australia and soon after relocated the rest of the family (Participants 2, 3, 4, E, F(5), H(8),
9, I, 10, K (L), N (O, P), and 14. Like Participants A and M, these participants whose parents came to Australia ahead of the family also cited better job opportunities and living conditions in Australia as the main reasons for migrating. These ideas were shared by significant others whose perspective the children assumed. Assuming the perspective of significant others, concerning the move to Australia was a response that allowed the children to make sense of migration.
For many participants, a better life and future meant job opportunities for parents in Australia. This would provide the family with financial resources. For them, a better life also meant living in a clean and peaceful environment. Some participants were already aware of the economic circumstances of their relatives in the Philippines. This was important since it revealed that the children’s idea of having a better life was connected to financial resources and this was influenced by their significant others.
Participant B: Well, I like, I remember like going to this hotel resort [in Philippines], called Days Inn, my cousins were there and a couple of my poor family.
Participant 4: I see my grandpa and grandma and my uncle [in Philippines]. My aunt lives in near my old house and my uncle lives in big house, he’s rich and he works in a bank.
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Participant 30: [On why they migrated to Australia]To have money, according to Dad. (Para magkaroon po ng pera... si Papa po [sabi niya].)
Children’s perspectives on the reason for immigration to Australia echoed the economic motives behind migration (Adams 2008; Todorova, Suarez-Orozco, & Suarez-
Orozco 2008; Leibfritz, O'Brien, & Dumont 2003). While some participants (A, G, H, I, and
12) were too young to understand the move to Australia, others were convinced that migrating to Australia offered opportunities for a better future. The notion of a better future was communicated by parents and grandparents who first experienced life in Australia.
Whilst children were not involved in the decision to migrate, they nevertheless understood the reasons for migration to Australia and were convinced that the move was in their best interests. In terms of Mead’s (1934) theory, through socialisation, the participants had taken on the attitudes of their parents toward migration. This allowed the participants to understand leaving behind family and friends in the Philippines to live in Australia.
Most of the children’s views and images of Australia were informed by the perspectives of significant others in the Philippines. Through the influence of those significant others who first experienced life in Australia, children anticipated a better life in the country.
Upon arrival in Australia, children had mixed feelings. Most felt excited and were happy to be reunited with a parent in South Australia. Some felt anxious about what lay ahead. Two respondents felt bored because there was nothing to do in the first few weeks after arrival. In fact their mother wanted to return to the Philippines and initially missed having household help. Many participants who had been separated from or left behind by parents— 2, 3, D, 4, E, 5, F, H, 8, I, 9, 10, K, L, N, O, and P — were relieved to be reunited with them.
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Participant C: I was excited and I was really happy to be here safe and sound.
Participant F: It was boring, we were bored; we stayed home.
Participant 5: Ah it was, my mum wanted to go home [to Philippines] earlier... And then she keeps [moving around]. She has no nothing to help with… no maid, and no friends.
The feelings of anxiety may be related to the fact that most participants came from extended families in the Philippines. Many participants expressed a longing for relatives they left behind in the Philippines.
Participant C: I remember that my family were like in my house like all day, coz they were like doing their jobs and we were at school... I have my grandma and my granddad in there and there was a big house.
Participant J: [I miss] my family and my friends… Like my cousins, my nephew, my nanay [grandma] and my papa [grandpa].
For this reason, to be uprooted from a place that offered them the comfort of having significant others around or somewhere in the vicinity was challenging for many children.
Participant O: We are the only ones in our family here… Very sad because we don’t get to see them [relatives] much.
Children learnt to cope with this challenge by relying on parents and siblings and by keeping close friendships with other Filipino families. In Chapter 7, it is noted how children’s networked selves were also able to address this separation from significant others, through the internet.
5.2.3. Image of Australia
Settling in South Australia was accepted by children despite the anxieties and feelings of loneliness. These feelings were overcome by the image of Australia they held.
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Many felt that Australia was a ‘better’ country than the Philippines for various reasons. For some this was because of the variety of activities they engaged in. Others referred to opportunities for work and to earn more money. Some found particular locations and the environment attractive.
Participant E: Yes... because it’s a very nice country... Because we can have work here and have more money, and live more better [sic].
Participant M: Yeah... It is like a better environment. Everything is easier here. You can have the job here easily. You can easily get a cheap house by just working and all that.
Some children formed an image of Australia from the generalised others they encountered when they first arrived. These generalised others comprised individuals and groups who were not necessarily related to the children. From these individuals, children could reference attitudes and actions that exemplified social norms and behaviours. Many encountered people in and around their vicinities in South Australia whom they did not know at first. Children experienced firsthand kindness and a sense of neighbourliness from these people.
Participant 13 (aged 12) was overcome with sadness a few nights after arrival in
Adelaide. He felt ‘alone’ with no one to talk to but his mother and father. In the Philippines, he had his grandmother and cousins to talk to. His sadness dissipated when he made friends with a neighbour living next door. His neighbour helped by showing them where the school and shops were, where and how to take the bus, and gave them furniture, blankets, pillows, and food.
Participant 13: I had no idea what to expect I just knew that there would be, kind of, be like America... But when I came here, [it] wasn’t a big city, like, New York; it was just, like, small buildings, small population.. I started sobbing up a bit at nights in the first few weeks because you had literally no one to talk to and then, few days later we met our next door neighbour…She was interested in different cultures. Then, even more peculiar she was interested in the Philippines
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because she has met quite a few Filipinos from certain groups… She is Australian. But I think she comes from England. She had sort of like same accent… she actually gave us stuffs like furniture, blankets, and pillows, and even like, a few pantry pieces. So that actually helped us a bit to survive in the first few months and we found our first house.
Awareness of generalised others was also demonstrated by the other participants.
Participant 13 felt good about his encounter with a kind lady next door when they first arrived in South Australia. Participants D, E, H, and 11 also shared experiences with generalised others that were constructive, such as, people greeting them with ‘hello’ on the streets, their parents’ employers meeting them at the airport, giving them winter clothes and goods, or taking them to dine at restaurants. These welcoming gestures of generalised others contributed to their positive image of Australia.
However, the case of Participant 9 was exceptional. He encountered a different experience upon arrival in South Australia that involved anti-social others, whose actions were undesirable and unacceptable. He came to the country with his sisters and mother.
They were picked up from the airport by his father who came with a friend. When they returned to the house, they realised it had been ransacked and their father’s car stolen.
Participant 9 was shocked and saddened by this. For him, this event did not change his positive image of Australia. He was happy to stay in Australia as he was now reunited with his father. Also, he cited other reasons like the ease of owning a house, the cool weather, and the school he attended as reasons for wanting to stay. Participant 9 coped with a traumatic experience by drawing on more positive motivations for settling in Australia.
These reasons reduced the experience with anti-social others to an isolated incident.
A number of participants were aware of the geographical difference between
Australia and the Philippines when they experienced cold weather upon arrival in South
Australia. Many participants preferred the cold weather in Australia to the consistently hot and humid climate of the Philippines.
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Participant 6: It was cold, it was winter then, then we rode a taxi to get home, I saw houses and some white people. (Malamig po, winter po nun, eh; tapos sakay kaming taxi papunta rito, nakita ko yung mga bahay, yung mga taong puti.)
Participant P: It was kind of cold, and it was my first time, when I met my dad’s friends, and our house was very small, and there was this big room that [my big sisters] had to sleep in and I had to sleep in a small room with mum and dad.
While two respondents (6 and 13) felt Adelaide was like a small town, after comparing Adelaide to Cebu City in the Philippines and New York City in the USA, most participants felt that spaces were wider and more expansive than in the Philippines.
Personal mobility was seen as an issue by some participants. Some children enjoyed the luxury of travel by car or taxi in the Philippines; others remembered riding motorised tricycles, the most commonly used transport in the Philippines. This mode of transportation was available to most children whenever they needed it in the Philippines. Participants 4,
C, D, and 6 remembered their experience with Philippine tricycles.
Participant 4: There’s [sic] different cars and motorbikes and jeeps... it’s much better in tricycle... It’s only 3 people can fit, oh 3; my mum and my dad, my dad is at the back of the motorcycle guy, and my mum and me are inside sitting, yeah.
There were no timetables or schedules for these. In Australia, buses and trains followed strict schedules. Some participants understood the constraints in terms of mobility in their present residences in South Australia. For most children, this issue was addressed by having their own family cars.
Many children noted the quiet, safe, and clean surroundings in Adelaide. These added to their positive image of Australia.
Participant D: It was really interesting... coz it’s not loud like Philippines... coz I can sleep properly. People here are quiet; they make noise sometimes if there’s a party. (Kasi tahimik yung mga tao dito, sometimes nag-iingay rin sila kung may party.)
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Participant 4: It’s a great place, it’s safe place; to start a new life, here in Australia.
Participant 6: It is just like a town, not too big, quiet. I like it, it’s cool, no mosquitoes, it’s not noisy. (Parang town lang...kasi hindi masyadong malaki... Tahimik po... Gusto ko, malamig dito... tsaka walang lamok...hindi maingay.)
Participant M: It was really different coz it was quieter and more clean [sic]. There were like really nice people here. It was nice.
Children were attracted to places in Australia. Some mentioned the beaches in
South Australia as favourite places, such as Semaphore, Glenelg, and Henley Beach, while others talked about other places like Moonta Bay and Flinders Ranges. Some had gone interstate as well and liked the experience.
The children’s image of South Australia reinforced their perspective on why their families left the Philippines. This also supported their view that living in Australia provided them with a better future through better employment opportunities for parents and hence financial resources. With a better environment to live in, compared with the Philippines, the children were able to make sense of settling in Australia. Children used as ‘reference group’ the Philippines to evaluate their preferable circumstances in South Australia. Many were encouraged to invite relatives to come and visit Australia or stay permanently in the country. They referred to better job opportunities and a desirable environment as attractions. Even when confronted with a traumatic event such as a house break-in, focussing on the positives was a coping strategy that was demonstrated.
5.3. Interaction in the home
It was mentioned in Chapter 3 that the home was where children first learnt to interact with significant others, most importantly their parents and siblings. This allowed them to become familiar with a culture (or cultures) which interactionists viewed as shared
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meanings and symbols. Primary socialisation in the family allowed for the propagation of the cultural values and norms held by children’s parents.
In this research, children’s parents ensured the dominance of the heritage culture in the household. Socialisation into the heritage culture enabled the children to internalise and acquire many aspects of their parents’ own cultural and linguistic characteristics that represented the parents’ identities. Although culture existed at the time children were born and as such structured their lives, shared meanings and symbols were still modified, negotiated, and rejected (Becker 1963) by children. Interactionists view children as active participants in the socialisation process and they could actively shape culture through their responses to it.
This section presents information on the children’s socialisation experiences in the home by highlighting what children learnt through interaction with their parents and siblings. This interaction emphasised the importance of learning symbols through language, food, routines and rules, religion, family holidays and activities.
5.3.1. Relationship with parents and siblings
In exploring how children learnt about their selves and identities through interaction with parents, siblings, and significant others, it was important to give a brief description of the families of the participants through related demographic attributes such as parental employment and status. This includes information related to children’s family structure and children’s description of familial relationships. This information addresses the key issue of children’s understanding of their parents and siblings as significant others.
Children’s views of their parents and their relationship with them indicate a process of learning about familial relationships and values.
Table 5.1 presents selected characteristics about the parents of the participants, such as marital status and employment. It also shows the family size of the participants.
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This study did not intend to delve into the relationships between family income, family
structure, and living conditions of the participants. However, the data on the parents’
employment status indicated an ability to provide for the family’s basic needs and other
resources. This is important as economic circumstances also shape the interaction of
families.
Table 5.1 Selected family characteristics
Family characteristics Participants Total %
With parents living together A, B, C, D, E, F (5), G, H (8), I, J, K (L), M, N (O, P), 1, 2, 3, 6 (7), 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14 23 96
With single parent 4 1 4
With father employed A, B, C, D, E, F (5), G, H (8), I, J, K (L), M, N (O, P), 1, 2, 3, 6 (7), 9, 10, 12, 13, 14 22 92
Not mentioned 4, 11 2 8
With mother employed A, B, C, D, E, G, H (8), I, K (L), M, N (O, P), 1, 2, 3, 4, 11, 13, 14 18 75
With stay-at-home mother F (5), J, 6 (7), 9, 10, 12 6 25
Dual-income household A, B, C, D, E, G, H (8), I, K (L), M, N (O, P), 1, 2, 3, 13, 14 16 67
Single-income household 4, F (5), J, 6 (7), 9, 10, 12 7 29
Not mentioned 11 1 4
Family size (including parents) 3 A, 13 2 8 4 C, D, G, H (8), M, 2, 6 (7), 12 8 33 5 5 (F), I, K (L), N (O, P), 1, 3, 4, 9, 10, 11, 14 11 46 6 B, E, J 3 13
Length of stay in Australia 1 year or less D, 6, 7, 9 4 13 2 years E, H, 8 3 10 3 years C, I, J, K, L, N, O, P, 10, 11, 12, 14 12 40 4 years A, B, F, 5 4 13 5 years and more G, M, 1, 2, 4, 3, 13 7 23
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All participants in the study were either permanent residents or citizens of
Australia. Most children (76%) had been in Australia for 3 years or more. Since a number of participants were siblings (F and 5, 6 and 7, H and 8, K and L, and N, O, and P), a total of 24 families were represented with 23 pairs of parents and one single mother.
Ninety-six per cent (96%) of the participants had parents who lived together, while only one participant lived in a single-parent household. Ninety-two per cent (92%) of the fathers were gainfully employed, the majority of them, tradesmen. While one participant stated that his father was deceased, one respondent did not mention anything about his stepfather. Seventy-five per cent (75%) of the mothers were gainfully employed. Many of the working mothers were employed in business establishments and various service sectors such as childcare, aged-care, nursing, and student support. Twenty-five per cent
(25%) were stay-at-home mothers.
Most of the participants came from dual-income families (67%). Having both parents who were employed could imply twice the capacity to provide for the family’s needs. Having two income-earners in the family could influence the family’s living conditions, particularly the ability to provide for not only the basic needs of the family such as food, clothing, transport, and shelter, but also for other material possessions like television, toys, and computers, as well as non-material goods such as holidays and entertainment. All participants mentioned that their parents bought them goods like computers and toys, or went on vacations with them.
This information on the parents’ employment status was also important as economic circumstances of parents affect parent-child relationships and family interactions
(Galinsky 1999). Examples of this link between economic circumstances and family interactions were discussed in the succeeding sections where the parent’s ability to take children on Philippine holidays and the provision of the latest gaming devices were
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supported by the parents’ employment. The socialisation of values on work, money, and occupational aspirations of children were also influenced by the parents own values on work and employment (Hoffner, Levine, & Toohey 2008; Medved et al. 2006). While some mothers stayed home and took care of the family’s needs, some pursued careers. The children were not concerned whether or not their mothers stayed at home or had careers.
They understood why their mothers stayed home, citing reasons like their mothers prepared meals for them, walked with them to school, and helped with their homework.
However, Participant 6 desired for his mother to find employment so she could start earning money for herself. Children understood the importance of having work in order to live better. This corresponds with earlier evidence that work opportunities were reasons why the family migrated to Australia. This information provided a basis to examine the socialisation of children not only into work values but also attitudes towards work.
5.3.1.1. The parents of the participants
Parents were the most important significant others for children. Except for a couple of respondents, Participant 4 whose father had died a year prior to the interview and
Participant 11 whose parents were separated and the mother had remarried, the rest of the participants had parents who lived together. Children described their parents as ‘kind’,
‘caring’, ‘loving’, and ‘nice’, revealing good relationships between children and parents.
This recognition was illustrated by responses that expressed how their parents demonstrated these positive attributes. These included playing with them, cooking for them, helping them with school work and supporting them in their activities, taking them to shopping malls, and watching television shows with them.
Participant A: My mum and dad are really nice. And they always play with me and my dad tells me lots of jokes and watch TFC [The Filipino Channel].
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Participant 3: Mum, she always takes me around, anywhere, she also prepares my [snacks] and lunch for school, and she drops me off to school and buys my clothes... Dad always boosts my confidence, like, when I was making a speech, he prays for me. (Si Mama, lagi akong dinadala kahit saan, sinasama ako, pati yung, siya yung nag-aano sa recess at lunch ko, sa school, pati lagi siyang yung nagda-drop, pati bumibili yung damit ko...Pati Papa ko lagi akong gini-give ng confident, yung parang kung sa school yung naggagawa akong speech, lagi niyang pini-pray yun.)
Participant D: Ok, my mum is really kind, she plays with me sometimes and she helps me [with] homework, dad is kind too... coz he cooks for me.
Participant N: Mum and dad support me because I do business, when I sell cakes and that.
For many children, positive attributes ascribed to their parents pertained to the time parents spent with them and the support given them. Participant 13 echoed what most of the participants felt about their parents— their parents were role models. The parents gave them confidence and encouragement to learn and engage in meaningful activities. The parents of Participant 13 (aged 12) allowed him to make mistakes in order to learn how to behave.
Participant 13: I think that they are very good role models because they teach me like when I was little, people wouldn’t say, my mum and dad wouldn’t say, ‘Don’t do that or else I will spank you!’ It was kind of like ‘Do it and learn.’ It was kind of funny when I was little I actually ran up in the stairs because like kids are energetic. Just going up and down and one day I tripped and then I got like a bump on my head and then my mum and dad said, ‘See that is not why you don’t run up and down in the stairs [sic].’ Now, it was like the complete opposite. I never run on stairs. I never like even to power walk upstairs [sic].
Children described their parents as hard-working and this coincided with the ability to provide for their needs. Participant 4 described his mother, who was a single parent, as hard-working and the main breadwinner. Participant 11 described his mother as a good provider.
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Participant 4: My mum have [sic] diabetics [sic] and she always work hard, she go at 4 and go home at 10:30... She’s hard- working. And she cater [sic], catering every Saturday and Sunday or sometimes I’m here, like weekdays and we go to party at Saturday and Sunday and we just go there and give food and have fun.
Participant 11: She’s [mother] really nice, she buys me everything I want, well not everything but most of the things.
Since the majority of the parents of the participants were gainfully employed, they had the ability to provide for the basic needs of the children as well as other products for home entertainment and for other activities, for example, televisions and cable subscription, computers and internet connectivity, gaming consoles, toys, and mobile phones. Children’s engagement with media through such devices will be discussed in
Chapter 7. All the participants had most of these products as evidenced by their reference to such things in the interview and by my observation of the presence of such products when interviewing in children’s homes. The material comfort that parents provided suggested to children the importance of the ability to do this through gainful employment.
Most children were already aware of this connection by taking the role of significant others.
Participant M pointed out:
Participant M: Life is very hard in Philippines. More work. Mum and dad used to work a lot to get money and all that. So it is better here because there’s heaps of job, it is easy to get a job in here. Life is more easier here.
Children’s perspectives about their good relationship with their parents also revealed occasional disciplinary actions which most found normal. A number of participants said that parents were strict especially with regard to issues involving respect and obedience. For them, insolence resulted in spanking, not being allowed to go out with friends, or withholding privileges. Most understood why their parents ‘got angry’ or why they were admonished and they knew the consequences of defiance. Disobedience and
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disrespect attracted discipline and punishment. Other parents confiscated mobile phones, computers, iPads and iPods, or withheld television viewing privileges.
Children demonstrated an understanding of these discipline measures. Children took the perspective of their parents that discipline was meant to correct a misdemeanour because their parents loved them. They coped with their parent’s anger, which was accompanied by occasional outbursts and even corporal punishment if they failed to obey.
Participant 10 just ‘laughed off’ his mother’s anger whenever he failed to clean up his room. He clarified that laughing off the admonition did not mean that he was making a mockery of it but reminded himself that regardless of the mother’s annoyance he was still loved.
Participant 10: My mum, she’s not that strict, she only gets angry if I don’t clean up and if I am just on the computer all the time... I just laugh it off in the room when mum gets angry, I know she loves me. (Si mama ko naman, di siya masyadong strict,magagalit po siya sa yo kapag di ka naglilinis at tsaka nagko-computer ka lang... Basta tatawa lang po ako, di ko alam po basta pag nagagalit nanay ko, tatawa ako sa kwarto...basta alam ko po love niya ako.)
Through socialisation, children recognised their parents as providers of basic needs and wants. They were aware that their parents controlled the resources in the home.
In addition, children appreciated the time that their parents spent with them as this demonstrated love, care, and support. Also, children recognised their parents’ supportive role in their lives. This was evident from the lessons they learnt from their parents and the discipline they received. Children learnt about parental protection, nurturance, and expressions of affection and warmth. Parents not only functioned as sources of information for children’s socialisation but they also were partners in preparing children to become well-functioning members of social groups (Grusec & Davidov 2007). Parental role modelling had an influence on how children shared meanings of familial and cultural values. Parents facilitated the socialisation of children into cultural or heritage values,
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ethics and appropriate behaviour, attitudes towards discipline, in addition to life and work skills. Children responded to this socialisation by taking on the perspective of parents through parental demonstration of positive attributes and attitudes.
5.3.1.2. The siblings
Siblings were significant others for most children and sibling relationships provided opportunities for socialisation to familial values. On average, the family size of the Filipino children participants in the study was 5 members, including the parents. This information is important when considering the influence of siblings on the socialisation of children to familial values.
The number of siblings and the birth position of the participants are illustrated in
Figure 5.1. Participants A and 13 were single children; eight participants had one sibling,
13 participants had 2 siblings; while 4 participants had 3 siblings. Six (20%) of the participants were eldest children, 14 participants (47%) were the youngest among siblings, while 8 (27%) were middle children. Eleven participants (37%) had siblings who were also interviewed in this study.
Participants with older siblings addressed their siblings either as ‘Kuya’ for ‘big brother’ or ‘Ate’ for ‘big sister’. In the case of Participant 1, he addressed his eldest sister as ‘Ate’, but the second oldest by her first name. The second older sister did not mind being called by her first name and did not consider Participant 1 (a younger brother) as disrespectful to her. Participant 5 mentioned that his younger brother did not call their sister (a middle child), ‘Ate’, but he liked being addressed as ‘Kuya’ his younger siblings.
Likewise, Participants H and M confirmed that it is common practice in Filipino culture to address older siblings, cousins, or friends as ‘Ate’ or ‘Kuya’ (or similar relational terms from other Philippine languages).
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Figure 5.1 Participants and their siblings
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These relational terms of the Filipino family unit were not only used by children within their families, but also extended to Filipino friends. With these relational terms, children demonstrated adherence to values of respect and recognition of authority (by birth position) of siblings as a social norm and an important feature of Filipino culture. Often, the parents addressed children according to these relational terms. For example, in the case of
Participant 5, his mother referred to him as ‘Kuya’ and called the sister, Participant F, ‘Ate’ as if the mother were taking the perspective of the youngest sibling of Participants 5 and F.
This modelled to the youngest sibling the behaviour of addressing the older siblings with these relational terms.
Children, in general, had positive relationships with their siblings. Some older siblings played with them, shared things with them, helped them with their homework, and took care of them. Children were socialised to care for and get along well with their siblings. This relationship with siblings helped most participants to cope with their longing for cousins and other relatives in the Philippines.
Participant D: My brother is really kind... coz he always plays with me... soccer, cricket, and basketball... I ask my brother to help me [with homework].
Participant 4: My brother has his own room, and it’s full of pictures and a flag of Philippines... And he has a computer in his room and he has a bed, he got his own clothes, Filipino clothes... They [brother and sisters] let me in their room, look around and play with their stuff, yeah.
However, most participants had disagreements with siblings as illustrated by the following examples. The common types of sibling disputes involved heckling and teasing, fighting over toys, possessions, and attention from parents, as well as, stress-related personal struggles of older (adult) siblings that spilt over into relationships with younger siblings.
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Participant 3: Sometimes there’s fight, like when my sister is stressed or what, and I talk to her, then she gets angry. (Minsan merong away kasi like yung stressed yung ate ko or ano, tapos kinakausap kahit anu-ano, tapos nagagalit, yun.)
Participant 7: Big brother always fights with me... because he doesn’t share toys. (Si Kuya palagi nang-aaway...dahil hindi siya nagpapahiram ng toys.)
Participant M: Sometimes, we fight over food. Sometimes, we kind of don’t share a lot. We have different stuffs and we don’t have to borrow each other’s stuff like clothes and all that, shoes; so we don’t have to share.
Participant O: Participant P and Participant N are very annoying... Participant P, she won’t stop touching my stuff and she keeps lying and Participant N she always hurts us... She pinches us... I think she pinches us because she thinks that we are annoying as well.
Minor disagreements and conflicts among participants and their siblings were often resolved by the intervention of a parent as illustrated by Participant J. There were occasions when some children found it better to leave their siblings alone. Leaving siblings alone was one strategy to cope with sibling disputes that did not necessarily involve parental intervention.
Participant J: Mum tells me and my brother, my sister off when we have fights.
Participant 3: Sometimes we will have family talk like what will change or what you want to change... Sometimes I leave her [angry sister] alone, sometimes I tell dad so he can solve it. (Minsan magfa-family kami, magta-talk, anong dislike or like, anong magbabago, gusto mong magbago, yung ganon... Minsan iniiwan, minsan sinasabi ko lang kay Papa... para siya ang mag-solve.)
While the participants demonstrated understanding of having a good relationship with siblings, they also quarrelled and had disagreements. To get along with siblings was learned through parental response. As significant persons in the life of the participants, siblings, especially the older ones, were expected to perform the role of caregiver for the younger siblings. This is a common cultural and social expectation among Filipinos.
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Participant 4 understood the difficulty of his single mother as the principal breadwinner in the family and as the youngest among four siblings. He expected his brothers and sisters to take care of him to ease the burden on his mother. The familial value of concern
(‘malasakit’ in Filipino) was expressed by the participant.
Children learnt the values of care and concern through their relationships with siblings. This had significant implications for the way they responded whenever disputes arose because children learnt to match their actions to parental expectations. The same values of care, concern, and respect were extended to relationships with peers (to be discussed in Chapter 6). For children who did not have siblings, as in the case of
Participants A and 13, opportunities to demonstrate sibling care and concern occurred through their relationships with significant others such as relatives and close family friends in Australia and cousins in the Philippines.
Children understood the role of their parents and siblings as their most important significant others. From their perspective, they were happy with their parents and siblings.
They recognised their parents as providers of their economic resources and providers of emotional and social support through nurturance, protection, love, and discipline. Children with siblings also recognised their brothers and sisters as significant companions and sources of emotional and social support even when, at times, sibling conflicts arose.
Although some children chose to distance themselves from their siblings to resolve disputes, conflicts were settled mostly through parental intervention.
In sum, children learnt about familial values of care, concern, and compassion through their relationship with their parents and siblings. Children were socialised to construct family-oriented and relational selves that were reflective of a collective Filipino culture. Children saw their parents as role models and they recognised their hard work as a pathway to a better life and future for the family.
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5.3.2. Language use at home
Language socialisation refers to what and how children learn through language and how they use language in interaction. This information on children’s language use at home is presented to emphasise that children had well established communication patterns before they joined South Australian primary schools. The Philippines is a multilingual country and Filipinos are socialised to speak languages other than the mother tongue (or the language of one’s parents). In the Philippines, English and Filipino languages are predominant in Philippine schools and workplaces. For this reason, many parents encouraged and supported their children to speak these languages in the home.
The languages most commonly used in their homes were English and Filipino.
Filipino is often used to refer to Tagalog. However, there were some who understood their parents’ mother tongue and spoke these languages, for example, Kapampangan, Ilocano, and Cebuano or Bisaya. Most children had limited understanding of their parents’ language, and responded in English. The parents of Participants A, 3, 6, 7, 9, 10, K, 11, L,
12, M, N, O, and P encouraged their children to speak Tagalog or their non-Tagalog mother tongue by speaking to them in that language at home. Participant M found difficulty in using three languages at home and preferred using English.
Participant M: English and Tagalog; I mostly speak English but sometimes I just add Tagalog words in it sometimes... My dad [speaks Tagalog]; but mum is Ilocano so, I can’t really understand a little bit. I can understand my dad a lot... I can a little bit understand them [when parents speak Tagalog] and a little bit speak in Tagalog. So, I am lost a little bit.
The feeling of being ‘a little bit lost’ as experienced by Participant M had to do with having more than two languages in the home. Her coping response was to prefer one language, English, when speaking to members of her family.
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The languages of the Filipino immigrant children are presented in Table 5.2, as well as the language used during the interview with the children. The languages most commonly spoken by the children were English and Filipino.
Table 5.2 Languages spoken at home
Language English Filipino/Tagalog Kapampangan Cebuano Ilocano
Used by A, B, C, D, E, F, C, D, F, K, L, participants G, H, I, J, L, M, 3, 4, 5, 10 during the N, O, P, 1, 2, 3, interview 4, 5, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13
Often A, B, C, D, E, 6, 7, 9, 14 1, 3 6, 7 spoken F, G, H, I, J, K, at home L, M, N, O, P, by 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 8, participants 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14
Rarely A, B, E, G, H, B M spoken by I, M, N, O, P, participant 2, 8, 12 but with some or little understanding
Often spoken A, B, C, D, E, F, A, B, C, D, E, B, K, L, 6, 7 M by parents G, H, I, J, K, L, F, G, H, I, J, K, 1, 2, 3, 10 M, N, O, P, 1, L, M,N, O, P, 2, 3, 4, 5, 8, 9, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 10, 11, 12, 13, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 14 11, 12, 13, 14
Often spoken B, C, D, E, F, C, D, E, I, J, K, 3, 10 6, 7 by siblings G, H, I, J, K, L, L, M, N, O, P, M, N, O, P, 1, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 2, 3, 4, 5, 8, 10, 11, 14 11, 12, 14
The co-existence of Tagalog and English in any given phrase or sentence is commonly used and known in the Philippines by the portmanteau word, ‘Taglish’. With the exception of six respondents, Participants K, L, 6, 7, 9, and 14 who were interviewed
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mostly in Tagalog, the rest of the participants were interviewed mostly in English with a few questions and responses in Tagalog or Taglish. Examples of these responses are presented throughout this chapter and the succeeding chapters. Participant F demonstrated her awareness of Taglish as mixing English and Tagalog.
Participant F: They [parents] tell me about respecting my olders [sic] and you should say ‘opo’ and’ po’… Yeah...Coz I only know a bit now, and sometimes I join with Philippines in Tagalog... Tagalog and English mixed together.
Participant G: We [family] speak Taglish but my sister and I, we speak English.
Language in children’s homes was laden with value-oriented aspects of their culture as mentioned in Chapter 2. Children managed to selectively appropriate their lines of action by using ‘respectful’ Filipino terms when speaking to Filipino adults. The words
‘po’ and ‘opo’ were used by many participants even in the conduct of the interview, whether they responded in English, Filipino/Tagalog, and Taglish. As discussed in Chapter 2, ‘po’ and ‘opo’ were common expressions of respect when speaking to older persons, particularly in the Tagalog language. Coinciding with the use of ‘po’ and ‘opo’ when speaking with older people was the use of terms that addressed elders without using their first names. An example was addressing, aunts and uncles (relatives or non-relatives) as
‘tito’ or ‘tita’ or their English equivalent; grandparents as ‘lolo’ and ‘lola;’ or older siblings and friends as ‘kuya’ and ‘ate.’ For many participants, it was unthinkable to call people older than themselves by their first names, a pattern of behaviour in Australia. However, there were a couple of participants (11 and M) who did not find addressing older people by their first names as offensive.
Participants did not address parents of Australian or non-Filipino friends by their first names. They called their friends’ mothers by attaching the name of their mate to the word, ‘Mum’ as in Jane’s Mum or simply using the title, ‘Mrs’. The same was applied to
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dads, brothers, sisters, aunts, and uncles, and even grandparents of the children’s friends and acquaintances.
Participant 12: I only know Jean’s mum, Lisa… I get to call her, like, Jean’s mum; and, Jean’s dad is Mike; and I can say Jean’s dad… I can say everyone’s names of dads and mums.
Researcher: Do your classmates do the same?
Participant 12: No, they say Kristie [Participant 12’s mum].
Researcher: So your friends call your mum by her first name.
Participant 12: Yup.
Most of these children understood the principle behind the use of respectful
Filipino terms such as ‘po’ and ‘opo’ by adopting related titles or relational terms such as
‘Mum’, ‘Dad’, ‘Mr’, or ‘Mrs’. This indicated the socialisation of relational terms not limited to significant others. They also realised its meaningful application to older generalised others like friends’ parents. Children’s ability to construct and apply polite expressions indicated their observance of or compliance with existing Filipino cultural norms.
Children of Filipino immigrants were bilingual or multilingual. They had not only learnt and used Tagalog, English, and their parents’ mother tongues, but also formed a preference for a particular language. With English the preferred language, Table 5.2 showed a clustering of participants who spoke fluent English in the interviews and who spoke English at home. Also, the siblings of participants spoke English. According to children, their parents spoke English but often spoke Tagalog when talking to the other parent. The same was the case with their children who often responded in English. Many participants found it necessary to learn to speak Filipino/Tagalog so that when they visited the Philippines they could converse with family and friends in that language. However, many of the participants said that they spoke Taglish in the Philippines.
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Participant A: My auntie, other auntie that lives here, not my real auntie, Tita Elaine. She always says that I have to speak Filipino. Which is, I have to get ready for Philippines.
Participant P: That we have to speak Tagalog or we won’t get to go to McDonald’s… and Jollibee.
Although the children were influenced by their parents’ encouragement to learn and use English, the mother tongue, and Filipino, they preferred English. Many children had already learnt the language prior to migration to Australia. Children learnt to use relational terms and polite expressions as part of Filipino culture. In addition, children learnt to adopt the principle behind polite expressions without necessarily using the exact words to address generalised others. Such actions showed that children not only adhere to this culturally appropriate behaviour, but also modified the polite gestures when needed.
Family activities provided opportunities to learn more about core values. Family activities highlighted what children learnt about themselves and others. Through family interaction, the children demonstrated the ability of taking the perspective of significant others in making sense of situations and responding to challenges encountered.
5.3.3. Socialisation through food and mealtime activity
Children experienced their culture not only through language but also through food and activities related to it, like food preparation and mealtimes. Children’s socialisation to
Filipino culture and social norms was embedded in food. Moreover, children were socialised to the economic values related to food through these shared activities.
Food culture in the Philippines has been described by Fernandez (1991) as a
‘multi-layered expression of Philippine culture and history’ (p. 104) . Philippine cuisine reflects a strong influence from food cultures of Asian traders (from China, South Asia, and
Arabia) that interacted with the early inhabitants of the Philippine archipelago long before it was colonised by Spain (1521–1898). Spanish influence on Philippine food culture is
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ubiquitous as a result of centuries of colonisation. Likewise, having been a colony of the
United States for nearly half a century (1898–1946), Philippine food culture is also
Americanised. It is worth mentioning that French and other European influences are visible too via the influences of the Spaniards and Americans to Philippine cuisine (Fernandez
1991). Thus, children had been socialised into Western food culture while they were in the
Philippines and this food culture was also present in Australia.
Participants enjoyed food in the Philippines prepared for them by their parents and other family members. Participant 1, Participant 2, Participant C, Participant 10, and
Participant 13 mentioned delicacies such as yema (milk caramel), leche flan (custard), taho
(soft and silken tofu), buko (young cocounut), sapin-sapin (layered glutinous rice dessert), and puto bumbong (purple-coloured rice cake). Participant 13 had a close relationship with his grandmother who prepared his favourite dishes, adobo (savoury pork in soy marinade) and picadillo (savoury and spiced minced pork or beef). Children demonstrated awareness of their culture through food. For Participant 13, food was connected with relationship with his grandmother.
Participant 13: When I was little I had a very close relationship with my Lola, my grandmother. And, she was like my best friend. In sad times, I go to her maybe she will cook for me my favourite food, for example, adobo. So, she will basically cook anything. And, yes, I like adobo and picadillo, and that is also one of my favourite foods because it is one of my favourite soups.
In the Philippines, grandparents and other relatives cared for children when circumstances constrained parents from so doing. For most children, care by significant others was associated with food prepared or favourite eating places where significant others took them. Participants A, 3, 6, 8, K, and P mentioned a popular fast food chain in the Philippines, Jollibee, which is similar to McDonald’s. Going to this famous fast food restaurant in the Philippines was an enjoyable experience.
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Participant A: We go to Star City and Mall of Asia. I go to Jollibee, my favourite one... And when I go to Philippines this year, I’m going to go Jollibee nearly every day.
Most children had daily family meals. There was at least one mealtime when all the family members dined together. Some families prayed before mealtimes, where children took turns leading the prayers.
Researcher: Does your family have meals together? Do you pray before mealtimes?
Participant C: Yeah... we pray. We ask God to give us strength so we could still study and yeah. I get to pray like it’s only a bit lines [sic], yeah and I don’t really usually pray, like my mum usually does but I sometimes do. [INC]
Participant G: We always do... We pray before we eat... Normally we have like this kind of roster thing where like on Monday I pray, Tuesday my mum prays, and then on Friday my sister prays, things like that. [Roman Catholic]
Participant H: Meal times, we do pray there too... I say, ‘Dear God, bless us, bless us every day, and bless the food, in Jesus’ name, amen. [Protestant]
Some participants, however, rarely had family meals due to the work schedule of parents and siblings.
Participant B: Not really, usually my mum and dad have breakfast because we’re all still sleeping and then we have breakfast sometimes, usually we have lunch together and sometimes we don’t... we don’t pray when we eat.
Participant J: Yeah like when Dad is at home, we have to eat at the same time and then but when Mum is at home, coz everyone’s busy, we just like eat separate, so sometimes someone eats alone.
In most homes, parents prepared the meals for everyone. It was rare that siblings or the participants themselves did so. Eight participants had mothers who stayed at home and prepared the meals. Some fathers of the participants also cooked for their children.
Children knew that kitchen duties such as cooking and food preparation were not
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gendered. While mothers often taught their children how to prepare food, male parents cooked and prepared meals too.
Participant B: The sinigang, nilaga, that’s all I know... I like the taste of it, it’s good... I’m not sure exactly how to really explain it, but there’s like different ways to make it but I like the way my dad makes it.
Participant D: Dad is kind too coz he cooks for me.
Participant 9: Yup, savoury squid... Daddy makes it. (Opo, adobong it po... Si Daddy po.)
For children, food preparation and other household duties (to be discussed in the succeeding section) were not gendered. Male children were socialised into these activities as much as the females. Participants G, J, and N sometimes cooked for the family.
Participant 13 cooked rice just before the interview and Participant 1 expressed interest in learning to cook adobo and leche flan. These older participants learnt to cook by observing their parents or by direct instruction from them. A few participants knew how to prepare
Filipino food. Children took the role of their parents when it came to food preparation.
Participant G: I like cooking... Sometimes in the weekend we cook, well we bake cakes and brownies and something like that, and sometimes we make this type of food, I forgot what it’s called... It has like potatoes and carrots... It’s a dish... Yeah it has meat... Beef I think... Yeah it has tomato sauce... and we sometimes cook like pasta.
Participant J: Ah yeah, sometimes I cook for them... I can cook sinigang, I can cook chicken, I can cook eggs... I can’t cook adobo.
Participant N: I like cooking and watching My Kitchen Rules, Junior Master Chef, Master Chef, and lot of ABC 3... Desserts... Yeah, I like making Crème Brûlée, and chiffons, I mostly do chiffons... I know how to cook adobo... Coz mum taught me, and mum was just trying to help me cook arroz... something caldo... It is a risotto.
All participants ate rice at least twice a day due in part to the Philippines being a
‘rice culture’. Moreover, some participants described the Filipino food their parents
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prepared for them but could not specifically identify it; while others named the Filipino food they had each day such as famous Filipino soupy dishes like, sinigang and nilaga. A famous Filipino dish that most of the participants named as their favourite was adobo. The main ingredient for this Filipino dish varies from pork, beef, chicken, or squid. One participant mentioned she and her family had adobo once a fortnight. Socialisation of culture was embedded in food and had a role on children’s identities as Filipinos.
Participant 5: I like, what it’s called [thinks], I’m not sure but it’s... like ah, lugaw [congee]. My dad keeps cooking it and friends like [it]... It has pork, it has soup, you’d know... Pork, heart of a...Not the sisig [savoury pork]... and I’m not sure, I’ll just keep going, I’m not sure, coz there’s lots of hearts that I’ve ate [sic]. [Participant was referring to a dish called papaitan which had offal and a taste of bile.]
Participant F: Yeah, and my favourite one is, I forgot the name, one of the spaghetti which is it’s orange but it has chicharon [crackling pork skin] and eggs... Sometimes, Mummy makes it [Participant was referring to palabok which had rice noodles, tofu, pork, and shrimp sauce].
Participant H: Ah my favourite food, are cake, adobo, that’s my favourite food.
Other Filipino food that participants mentioned eating included, caldereta (beef stew), longganisa (Filipino sausage), tocino (cured sweet pork), sinangag (fried rice), siopao (sweet pork bun), siomai (steamed dumplings), munggo (mung beans), tinola
(chicken soup), afritada (chicken stew), picadillo (Arroz ala Cubana), embotido (meat loaf), lugaw or arroz caldo (congee), sisig (savoury pork from chopped parts of a pig’s head), dinuguan (pork blood stew), palabok (rice noodles with shrimp sauce), puto (steamed rice cakes), yema (milk soft candy), champorado (chocolate rice), and leche flan (Filipino custard). Children knew that the ingredients for these kinds of food were available in Asian groceries in South Australia. These were also some of the dishes that participants remembered about the Philippines. Children demonstrated their Filipino selves through food preferences.
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Participants 8 and 13 identified Filipino food with the generic classification Asian foods.
Participant 8: My favourite food is munggo [mung beans] which is an Asian food, but that’s my second one... Yeah, I like Asian food and spice.
Participant 13: Because I am an Asian I obviously like Asian food a lot; those are one of the most favourite things that we like to eat.
These Filipino (Asian) foods that participants ate co-existed with Westernised food that the participants consumed in Australia, such as fried chicken, hotdogs, roast chicken, bacon and eggs, fish and chips, pizza, hamburger, cereals and oatmeal, spaghetti, pesto, carbonara, hot cross buns, cake, and ice cream. Children of Filipino immigrants adapted well to Australian tastes in food. Some foods that the participants ate were familiar to the
Filipino and were part of the Filipino diet. Participants’ food consumption was not limited to
Filipino cuisine. Western food culture was thus part of food culture in the Philippines and children were socialised into this in their early years.
Food remained central in maintaining children’s identities (Fischler 1988). The fact that participants named Filipino food vis-à-vis Australian/ Western food demonstrated knowledge of distinctly Filipino or Asian tastes. In the case of the participants, Philippine food culture was such not because of its origin from foreign cultures but because of what
Fernandez (1988) refers to as the ingesting culture behind food, where culinary practices did not have to be Filipino in origin or did they need to have some original and uniquely
‘Filipino’ form (Kirshenblatt-Gimblett 2003). Moreover, Fernandez (in Kirshenblatt-
Gimblett 2003) argues ‘Filipino food becomes Filipino at its destination’ (p. 60) rather than its source.
Children also learnt the economic value of food and food consumption. For many, food wastage was unacceptable and they were reprimanded for not finishing their meals.
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Participant F: They [parents] say you should eat [all your] food because some people in the Philippines doesn’t [sic] have food because they’re poor.
Participant H: When my dad, he’s going to spank me… because I didn’t eat my food, all of it… I went to my room… I cried and then when it’s all finished I stopped crying and I did drawing.
Children regularly ate at fast food restaurants like McDonalds. This experience taught children that some portion of the home budget could be allocated to occasional visits to restaurants. This provided children with alternatives to home-cooked meals. Their food knowledge and preferences were thus broadened and they learnt to behave in acceptable ways in these places. Some examples included waiting for food to be served and ordering food that was age-appropriate. Participant H, aged 8, suggested.
Participant H: We sometimes eat outside for dinner, we go to this restaurant called Danny’s restaurant, I think, and then we eat there, it’s slow but it’s a 3-star restaurant… We eat there but [sic] it’s yummy… They sometimes serve Filipino food, there’s this pork that they wrap it with banana leaf… That’s what I ate because that’s the kids’, for kids that they always eat [sic], my brother had this mild spicy food; he ate that by himself because it was so spicy… my mum had soup and my dad had this plate with all sorts of pork and vegetables.
Naming and describing a variety of Filipino food indicated that a part of the children’s selves was still located in the Philippines. Through interaction around food, children learnt about their Filipino identities through the Filipino dishes prepared for them.
They also learnt about the care of significant others and the values associated with food preparation. They learnt economic values associated with food and food consumption.
Hence, food as a symbol of culture allowed children to appreciate and maintain their Filipino selves while encouraging their hybridised Asian and Western selves.
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5.3.4. Routines, responsibilities, and rules
Socialisation to living skills helped children negotiate life in South Australia.
Performance of household responsibilities by children was an expected part of family life.
Participant 13 noted that in the Philippines, maids were hired to do household tasks, but things were different in Australia. The family relied on each member to do their share of household tasks. With the performance of tasks, values about work and skills useful for their entry into future work were socialised in the family. Goffman (1971) argues that routines are learnt by observation and replication. Through undertaking tasks in the home
(i.e., vacuuming, cleaning the floor, washing dishes), the children learnt the value of cleanliness. Responsibility was also taught through these tasks. Organisation skills through folding clothes in the wardrobe, setting the table, and packing away toys in proper places were also learned by the children.
Children engaged in routines in the home. They learnt to be responsible for a variety of tasks including cleaning the house, washing dishes, tidying up their bedrooms, and packing away toys.
Participant H: Chores, yeah after eating, my brother’s chore is to do washing the dishes in dinner, I wipe the table every time; I wipe the table on dinner, but I don’t wipe the table on afternoon [sic] because it’s my job to wash the dishes, because that’s my brother’s turn to wipe the table... I get to tidy my room, sometimes I play with my teddies and then put them back.
Participants learnt how to do tasks around the house from their parents.
Household tasks, either assigned by parents or done voluntarily, gave children the opportunity to help their parents. Also, these tasks allowed children to learn independence.
Participant 1: Only sometimes, when I want to clean up… but only when my dad has like the hand [shaky and tired hands]… Yeah, tired.
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Participant C: Well my mum is teaching me how to clean the dishes… Yes, ‘cause they can help their parents [who] have lots of things to do.
Participant 13: My house has a small vacuum hand held cleaner. And then my dad says, ‘Oh the floor is getting dust everywhere you better clean it up.’ I will get that. And I also help my father with doing the vacuuming… and putting the chairs and all the stuff like that… Yeah… kind of relates to being independent and learning.
Some children were given money for completing household tasks.
Participant 1: Washing the dishes, sweeping the floor, and keeping the house tidy, and the lounge, and I get $10 a week for that.
Participant B: Well we usually have this thing where the person that does the dishes like breakfast, lunch, and, dinner, and then whoever like wipes the table, has to sweep up the floor, yeah... when I clean, I think my dad agreed that every week, if my room’s tidy he gives me $10... Well I usually have to do the dishes at breakfast, but it’s really sometimes not fair because the person that had to do it at dinner doesn’t do it, and so it’s left over in the sink, and I had to do it.
However, most participants who did not receive payment for doing household tasks viewed these routines as a normal part of family life. Reluctance to be involved meant consequences.
Participant 11: Like if I don’t wash the dishes, I can’t use my phone for a week, that’s it.
These tasks and responsibilities in the house were often implemented as rules.
Children had to carry out their responsibilities in the home before leisure activities.
Participant E: We have to clean up the house and do our homework before doing games.
Participant 9: Don’t make a mess, vacuum and wipe the table. (Wag magkalat... Va-vacuum na lang po tapos po pupunasan po ang lamesa.)
Participant 10: Sometimes, when my aunt was here, we had to wake up [little brother interrupts and says, ‘You clean up’, yes, I clean up, and we have to wake up at 7:30 AM everyday... to clean
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up; my aunt knows I am lazy sometimes. (Minsan, yung pong nandito yung tita kokailangan po mag-wake up [little brother interrupts and says, ‘Mag-clean up ka’], oo, mag-clean ako, tsaka palagi kami nagwe-wake up at 7:30 AM... Para maglinis po; kasi alam po ng tita ko minsan po tamad ako.)
Rules and regulations in the home also covered other areas. For example, there were rules on personal behaviour, eating, sleeping, homework, play, and television.
Participant 2: No drinking Coke unless [we have] an occasion.
Participant C: Well, don’t play ball inside because we have TV in here.
Participant 3: You have to sleep on time... around 9 or 10 PM... No texting or staying up late to chat or watch TV. (Kailangan yung mag- sleep on time... Mga 9 or 10 [PM]. Yung walang magti-text o hindi ka mag-stay late ng nagcha-chat o nagwa-watch ng TV.)
Participant F: Hmm, not really, just a simple rule, do your homework before playing.
There were rules on social conduct like being respectful, helpful, and civic-minded.
Some participants (C, D, G, I, 6, 7, and 13) lived in housing units.
Participant 2: No swearing, no hitting each other… [in whisper] which is very common in our family.
Participant M: There are some rules. We have to be respectful and all that. We have to talk to each other respectfully. We don’t have that much rules but that’s basically the main one. We can’t talk rudely. We have to help each other.
Participant 7: Don’t make noise because neighbours might be sleeping. (Bawal po mag-iingay dito... Dahil meron nagtutulog dito.)
Rules enforced by children’s parents came with sanctions and consequences.
Breach of rules resulted in reprimand and withholding privileges.
Participant H: They’re [parents] nice to me but when I sometimes do some bad things, they sometimes angry with me and then they say sorry what they did... I say that I’ll do it then, and then they sometimes palo [spank] me...Sometimes I don’t follow them.
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Participant 13: Know your responsibility, just like, I think I have got my lesson like a few weeks ago, I forgot to, when I said, I wash dishes away and hang clothes. I forgot to do that because I was talking to my friends the whole time. They [parents] came back they were really annoyed. So they took away my iPad. It is still the same way the lesson and learn thing. You have to learn your responsibility.
Participant O: She [Mum] won’t let us watch TV or she won’t let us have any friends come over.
Routine tasks, responsibilities, and rules in the home related to socialisation of children to future domestic life. Participant 13 aptly puts:
When as soon as you leave your family basically you are on your own, you don’t get any help from your family and when you go out to the Uni. That is also good because you have a bit of independence… I think that is still like, important life skills doing, like, you have to look after yourself.
This anticipatory socialisation to future life of the participants was first encountered at home through routine tasks, responsibilities, and rules that were often laid down by parents. Children initially learnt about work through observation and replication of the performance of work by their parents and significant others. The children’s actual involvement in household activities also provided them with opportunities to learn about work values. These work values were socialised through clear expectations in the home about routine tasks. Some were rewarded in monetary terms. However, non-cooperation in terms of housework meant reprimand and denial of privileges.
Family expectations regarding home rules, routines, and responsibilities were enforced in the homes of the participants. Although some may seem trivial, these practices structured children’s ‘cultural repertoire’ and organised their life experience (Rogoff et al.
2007). The repertoire of practices that were socialised in the home included elements of the parental and heritage culture of the children. How their parents socialised these rules, routine tasks, and responsibilities was influenced by how the parents themselves were
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taught these. Through these tasks, culture was learnt by the children through associated norms and values that came with them.
In summary, children learnt living skills through the observance of routines, responsibilities, and rules in the home. They learnt concern for significant others and cooperation in the family household through the performance of daily routines. Children learnt that responsibilities in the home gained them independence in terms of looking after themselves and preparing them for the world of work. They learnt to avoid the consequences of non-compliance to household rules and routines through conformity.
5.3.5. Religious engagement
Religious identity of children includes ‘affiliation and belonging,’ ‘behaviours and practices,’ ‘beliefs and values,’ as well as ‘religious and spiritual experiences’ (Hemming &
Madge 2012). Fifty-seven per cent of the children (57%) were Roman Catholics, 20% followed the Iglesia ni Cristo (INC or Church of Christ) religion, while 10% were Protestants or Born-again Christians. The religion of the parents was accepted by the children, for the time being. Most of them identified with their parents’ beliefs and values and attended church and other religious activities with their parents. For children of Filipino immigrants, the church served as a community with which they identified.
Children were religious to the extent of outward observance of church beliefs and practices. Children prayed at meal times and before going to bed. They prayed alone or with family, friends, and the church community. They prayed for a variety of reasons including school-related concerns, physical health of the family, and safety in the house.
Many attended regular church days, Sunday school, Bible studies, and rosary prayers.
Others took part in serving at Mass as altar boys or choir members.
Participant 1: Catholic… Yes, I read in church and altar-serve... help Father [priest]... Yup, and like you help him with the wine
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and candles... We prepare the table for communion and we carry the wine and give it to Father… We have to go [sic] Miraculous Medal… We attend masses for it, it’s like one mass… Sto Niño [festival] We do a parade around the church.
Participant 9: [INC] I am a choir member, PWS [Praise and Worship Singer], my sisters also sing in the worship service...Daddy is a deacon and my Mum is studying to be a deaconess. (Ako po choir po ako... PWS po, sila ate po ano pa rin po dun pa rin dun sa worship service... Si Daddy po jakono po... [On mum] Magjajakonesa pa lang po yata.)
Participant H: [Pentecostal] In my church in Philippines, I didn’t have any friends… he [brother] takes me to the little class... Yeah and we do singing first… When we finish the lesson, when my brother finished his lesson, he goes to my class and helps me finish my stuff… We all the time pray; in school we pray in the morning and after school... Meal times, we do pray there too... I say, ‘Dear God, bless us, bless us every day, and bless the food, in Jesus’ name, amen.
The practice of putting the hand of an older person on children’s forehead was related to the Catholic or Christian tradition. This is called ‘blessing’, an outward expression of respecting elders. In common Filipino parlance it is referred to as ‘mano.’ A number of participants such as Participants A, 1, 4, 13, N, O, and P did this when the researcher entered their homes. When asked if they often practised it, Participant O noted they did it on their own sometimes, but sometimes their parents told them to do it.
Participant G: Sometimes, normally when they come over from work we normally give each other a hug or a kiss on the cheek or stuff like that and like in the morning just before we go to school something like that, we normally say goodbye and yeah we always say goodbye before we leave... Only when we meet like my mum’s friends, we do that [the ‘bless’].
Children’s engagement in religion and their acquisition of a religion was facilitated by their parents and significant others such as members of their extended families, priests and ministers. Children’s religious identity was initially constructed in the home prior to migration. The home was a favourable context for religious socialisation and learning beliefs and values, practices and rituals. Religious identity of children was almost a natural
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derivative of the parents’ religion and religious identity. All participants were inducted into the religion of their parents. Most children at the outset assumed the religious perspectives of parents and accepted this.
Some children found their peer group in the church as in the examples of
Participant C, 5, 9, H and N. A number were allowed by parents to have sleepovers in the house of a church mate but not in the house of their school mates. The religious network of the participants was a network of quasi-relatives since the participants addressed the parents of their church peers as ‘Uncle’ or “Tito’ for the fathers and for the mothers, ‘Auntie’ or ‘Tita.’ In the Philippines this practice was common. The bond of sanguinity and affinity was not a rigid determinant of kinship. Among Filipinos, this sense of kinship was maintained by virtue of the religious and ethnic identity.
Children learnt their religious identity through their parents. Parental socialisation of religion through church attendance and involvement in church activities provided opportunities for children to learn behaviours deemed acceptable by the church community. These social behaviours included care and respect for others, and participation and cooperation in church rituals and activities.
5.3.6. Vacations, shopping, and other leisure activities
Children were rarely consulted when it came to vacations. The decision to take a holiday was organised by parents. Children’s parents provided for occasional intrastate or interstate travels. Most of them saved for Philippine vacations as well. Children preferred
Philippine holidays. All of the participants had gone or were planning to go to the
Philippines on vacation.
Family interaction was not limited to home-based activities in South Australia. All of the participants had travelled to places within South Australia, while many (Participants
1, 2, 3, F, 5, 6, 7, G, H, 8, 13) had travelled interstate and overseas.
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Participant B: We sometimes go camping with other, like other Filipino people... We don’t go out in the woods or anything... We have tents, with all the families... well, the people that they’re friends with, the children, I’m kinda friends with them, there was only this, my old school, there was only this one friend that is Filipino.
Participant 2: One of the 2-week vacations we went to Moonta Bay, and we had a 3-days and 2-nights sleepover there; I went to the fishing, I went fishing with the men, but on the 2nd to the last day, my dad was too cold and one of my friends, he was a really good fisherman was a son of a fisherman who always go fishing, we, he was still sleeping but I woke up early so he stayed, but then when he woke up he cried when he knew that his dad was gone fishing; I was the only kid there.
Participant 6: The last holiday, we went to Melbourne... We had picture taking, we went to the tallest building in Melbourne... Driving, we were with five families... all driving separately... They have their own cars... Monday to Friday, we arrived back home Saturday… It was tiresome, but all is good, I watched the scenic view on my window. (Yung holiday, pumunta kami sa Melbourne... Nag-picture taking po, tapos nagpunta kami sa pinakamataas na building dun sa Melbourne.. Driving, may kasama po kaming limang kapamilya...driving po lahat kami... Hiwalay-hiwalay, may kotse sila eh... Mga sa Monday tsaka sa Friday, ay di sa Saturday na kami nakabalik… Napagod rin, pero ok lang, nanonood ako ng view sa bintana.)
Children who travelled experienced a range of feelings including excitement, boredom, and impatience. Children learnt to adjust to the schedules set by their parents and older significant others. Many learnt to exercise patience and restraint. They learnt to address their personal struggles such as weariness. Children adjusted to the challenges of travel and organised their responses by fitting their lines of action with their significant others. Mead (1934) explains:
Our habits are so adjusted that if we decide to take a journey, for instance, we have a body of related habits that begin to operate—packing our bags, getting our railroad tickets, drawing out money for use, selecting books to read on the journey, and so on. There are a whole set of organized responses which at once start to go off in their proper relationship to each other when a person makes up his mind that he will take a journey (Mead 1934, p. 126).
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Holidays provided children with anticipatory socialisation to activities outside the home. Travelling enhanced children’s view of the world and broadened their perspectives.
Travelling did not just inform and educate children about places and provide leisure and entertainment, but it had symbolic significance. Travel gave opportunities to manage behaviour. Children learnt about themselves and others through travel. Children adjusted sleeping and waking habits to suit their activities. They learnt to put on situational selves that fitted certain occasions and activities. Children learnt to behave on these occasions as much as they learnt to enjoy their travel experiences. Some participants learnt
Tagalog/Filipino before going to the Philippines (Participants A and P).
Participant A: I never get bored in Philippines and tired because I always play with them, I never get bored. I have cousins; I gave my Wii to my cousins because they don’t have many of those stuff, like gadgets.
Participant I: My cousins and I go to each house and they give us money... Yeah, I got a thousand... I spent it... It’s more fun in the Philippines... me and my cousins always playing together every day, and we go to the badminton court and we play there.
Participant P: That we have to speak Tagalog or we won’t get to go to McDonald’s and Jollibee [in the Philippines].
Holidays were family time. For participants, family reunions were the highlight of visits to the Philippines. Time with peers, cousins, and friends in the Philippines was much anticipated. Philippine vacations allowed children to connect with significant others and their heritage culture. It had symbolic significance for children and allowed them to negotiate their concepts of ‘home’ with the Philippines, their country of birth. Many participants considered the Philippines as ‘home’ and a few (A, F, and N) fantasised about returning permanently. Children’s desire to be connected to the homeland is evidence that their Filipino selves and identities were maintained in their homes.
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Participant A: I always say I like Philippines better than Australia. I say because lots of my family and friends are there and I really miss them.
Participant P: To go back to the Philippines and live there forever… Because I want to see my family again, and my friends and I want to see Dad’s sister again coz she owns this store and we get everything for free.
Travel and holidays were not only about sightseeing. They included other family activities such as games, sports, and shopping. These allowed children to interact with significant others and learn from these experiences. Children shared their holiday experiences with their peers in Australia.
Participant 5: I like the Philippines because they have good resorts for tourist people [sic] and good for holiday... We go to [sic] shopping, every like every day, when we go home.
Participant J: I told them that there’s like… there’s lots of malls and yeah and then they say they want to go there [Philippines] because they wanna shop all day, yeah coz there’s like lots of like malls there and shopping.
Participant M: I told them [friends] about that and how I went one of those roller coasters and all that. And, heaps of shopping malls which is better, like, Mall of Asia, which is so much of fun. Because I have told them about my holiday and Mall of Asia how I used to get some clothes… that it’s really big.
Shopping was a family activity in Australia, as well as, in the Philippines. Many participants who frequented shopping malls in the Philippines had been socialised into a shopping culture. Langer (2002) argues that children in consumer societies take on a sense of self as ‘shopper’. Consumerism was part of children’s identities and the life of their families. They were exposed to a cornucopia of consumer products in the Philippines and Australia. The example of Participant 1 who got $10 a week for washing dishes and thought of spending his money on whatever he wanted. Participant 2 mentioned that one of the things that made him happy was when his mother bought him goods. Children knew what they wanted in terms of consumer products. Many wanted iPads, toys, and food
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items. Consumer socialisation of these children happened before they were able to pay for the products they desired. Participants learnt consumerist behaviour from their parents, peers, and significant others.
5.4. Conclusion
This chapter presented the socialisation in the home of children of Filipino immigrants. It emphasised a process of learning that involved interaction with the children’s significant others. This learning highlighted the children’s culture that provided context for their socialisation into familial values and relationships. Aspects of Filipino culture were embedded in language, food, routines and responsibilities, rules and discipline, religion, and other family activities.
From children’s accounts of their home experiences and associated socialisation activities, there was no major disconnection with the Philippines as their country of birth.
Children were aware of the reasons why they migrated to Australia and accepted these reasons. They took the perspective of their parents that the move was for a better future.
Most children, after experiencing life in Australia saw the benefits of staying there. Aware of the limited economic opportunities for their parents in the Philippines, the environmental issues and health risks, children accepted that Australia offered more economic benefits.
Despite the distance from family members in the Philippines, participants continued to maintain ties through occasional vacations and visits, and through media and the internet.
This allowed them to cope with loneliness and longing for significant others in the
Philippines. Maintaining ties through Philippine holidays strengthened their connectedness with family members and the home country.
Socialisation in the home through significant others, particularly the parents and siblings, reflected the participants’ sense of selves and identities. Children’s Filipino selves
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were maintained through interactions with family members in Australia and in the
Philippines. Their self-identifications as Filipinos were preserved symbolically through children’s culture, which was present in the socialisation process in the home. This comprised relationships with significant others, language, socialisation around food, routines and responsibilities, religion, and other family interactions through travel and shopping.
The home allowed children to be comfortable with their own selves and identities as Filipinos, but at the same time, children learnt to adjust to an Australia that comprised diverse cultures. Through socialisation to their heritage culture, the children’s Filipino identities were maintained.
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Chapter 6 Perspectives on school socialisation
6.1. Introduction
This chapter focuses on the school socialisation of children of Filipino immigrants.
In the context of the analysis, the children’s socialisation experiences in school refers to the process of learning that involves interaction with school/classmates and peers, teachers and other school officials.
Children’s perspectives about school and school activities, academic subjects, school culture and values, relationship with teachers and peers were informed by school experiences in the Philippines and in South Australia. Analysing children’s views about their experiences in school provided insights into their selves and identities and the socialisation processes that allowed them to understand what they thought of themselves in school, how they defined their situations in school, how they coped with challenges they faced, and how they responded and adapted to school.
The chapter is organised in two main sections— schooling experiences in the
Philippines and South Australia. In both these, themes and key issues that pertained to children’s perspectives on the nature of the school and academic/school work, and relationship with teachers and peers are examined. The symbolic interactionist concepts of selves and identities, taking the role and attitude of others, socialisation, and coping responses were used in analysing what children learnt from these school experiences.
It was mentioned in Chapter 3 that one third (33%) of the participants were Year 7 students while the rest were distributed throughout Years 3 to 6. Seventy per cent (70%) of participants attended government schools. Twenty per cent (20%) were enrolled in
Catholic schools while 10% went to the same Independent school. Of the total of 30 participants, only two did not experience prior schooling in the Philippines. These two participants were included in the study because of the insights they contributed regarding
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their schooling in South Australia. The majority of the 28 participants experienced at least a year of schooling in the Philippines. These participants were able to use their schooling experiences in the Philippines as comparative reference groups for their South Australian schooling experiences.
6.2. Schooling in the Philippines
With children’s extended family network, many of them saw other members of their family go to school, for example, older siblings and cousins in the Philippines. Parents, siblings, cousins, grandparents, aunts and uncles, even household helpers communicated the value of education and the importance of attending school. These significant others also helped children by taking them to school and by assisting them with homework and school projects. Participant 1 went to a school where his mother was a teacher. For this reason school culture blended with the participant’s home context. It could be that children with a parent who was also a teacher anticipated school culture early and this could have an impact on their attitudes towards schooling and their behaviour in school.
Participant 1: Yes I was reception there... My mum was a teacher... Every [sic] after school I go to her class and I meet her students then I became friends with her students because I always go to her class... because the school was like, it’s like there is a college in the school too; and secondary school too, and like preschool and reception was part of it.
Children’s perspectives on schooling, school-related values, and their attitudes towards school were influenced by their significant others. These significant others also helped with children’s daily routine of preparing for school, taking them to school, and subsequent related tasks after school.
The themes explored regarding children’s schooling experiences in the Philippines included their views on the physical characteristics (location and size) of the school, the
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nature of school work including academic subjects and other school-related activities, interaction with teachers, and peer relationships. Children’s difficulties and challenges related to these were also identified.
6.2.1. Perspectives on the physical characteristics of the school
Participants described their schools in the Philippines by the school’s physical characteristics in terms of location and size. Children’s views of the physical area of schools in the Philippines were also informed by their exposure to South Australian schools. Their experiences of South Australian schooling allowed them to reflect on their experiences of Philippine schooling. For this reason, children compared the size, location, and facilities of their old school with their new school.
Participant 11: In Philippines, it’s like 600 people in one school there, here, it’s like 200.
Participant M: There was a church [in my old school in the Philippines]. There was a canteen. We didn’t really have a room, it was a little space. It was nice. There was a little house where we can sit down when it’s sunny. It is nice.
Participant 11 attended one school with large enrolments. Participants 9 and M mentioned the small spaces in their school for play and other activities. This combination of large enrolments that translated to large class sizes and the small physical area of schools and classrooms were not uncommon in most public schools and even in some private schools in the Philippines.
Children referred to the location of the school in the Philippines being near their residences. This allowed them to go home for lunch and recess.
Participant 3: Kinder... It is fun and during recess and lunch break we can go to our house, to eat and I also share what I did in school with my family, sometimes with my Grandpa. (Kinder... Masaya pati pag recess and lunch pwede kang pumunta sa
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bahay, magkain pati sabihin mo yung ginawa mo sa school sa family, minsan sa Lola ko.)
Participant M: I remember coming back for lunch time at home. After lunch time we used to finish at 4:00 and all that.
Although primary school zoning is not practised in the Philippines as it is in South
Australia, some children in the Philippines attended nearby schools that allowed them to leave the school premises during break time and return to school soon after. For some children, proximity to school allowed them to have meals at home. However, children who lived far from schools brought home-cooked meals or purchased them from the school canteen or nearby shops.
Participants 2, K, and 9 referred to some school resources that were lacking in their Philippine schools like the library, computers, and Smartboards.
Participant 2: There’s no library at the Philippines… Well there’s none in my old school.
A number of participants (2, 9, I, N) referred to play areas in their old schools or the lack thereof. Participant N studied in a central school in the city that had no playgrounds. Participant 9 who studied in a private school described his school in the
Philippines as small in terms of play area after comparing it with his current school in South
Australia. Participant 2 said his school in South Australia was better compared with the
Philippines because of the four playgrounds.
Participant N: Yeah, the school we went to was something central school... We didn’t have playgrounds there.
Participant 9: [On the play area] In the Philippines it [ball court] is small, it’s a whole court but there’s only one. (Pilipinas po ano, maliit lang po, buong court nga po pero isa lang po.)
Children saw the significance of play areas in school. This is unsurprising since play is part of children’s stable routines (Mead 1934). The school playground for children
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was deemed an important part of the school’s physical environment. It was where they learnt to interact with school mates through play and games. It was a place for children to interact while eating. These same playground activities are discussed further in the section on the children’s schooling experiences in South Australia.
6.2.2. Perspectives on school work and related activities
Children’s views on school work in the Philippines and other school-related activities were informed by their experiences of South Australian schooling. When describing their academic subjects and other school activities in the Philippines, they compared these with what they experienced in their current schools. Children described their routines in Philippine schools. Participant K took part in ‘the Flag Ceremony’ which was followed by class activities.
Participant K: Every morning we would go out of the classroom then head to [school] entrance and then we would sing Bayang Magiliw [sic] [Lupang Hinirang; Philippine National Anthem]...Every morning, the teacher brings out a wooden pointer, points to the alphabet, in my team, I point to a letter which my classmates need to recite. (Every morning po, lalabas kami sa ano, sa classroom, tapos pupunta kami sa, yung ano po yung entrance po tapos, si-sing po namin yung Bayang Magiliw... every morning po doon nag ni-ni aano yung wood ba, tapos sasabihin ng teacher, ipopoint sa mga alphabet, tapos ung ako sa team namin nipointpoint ko kelangan nila sabihin.)
In the Philippines, the flag ceremony was done either in class or in the school grounds. The school socialised Filipino children to Filipino citizenship through the Flag
Ceremony where the national symbol— the Philippine National Flag— was raised while the
National Anthem (Lupang Hinirang) was sung. The Pledge of Allegiance to the country was also recited. It was mandatory for elementary school students to memorise the pledge and the anthem.
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Students enjoyed doing school work and other school-related activities.
Participant 1 attended a school where his mother was a teacher and enjoyed that.
Participants 8, 10, and 13 found school work and homework in the Philippines manageable.
Participant 1: Yes... Because that’s where I all started, like I started school there, and I learned lots of stuff there... spelling... English and sometimes we had sports... soccer.
Participant 8: I got more time to study and learn; and sometimes my homework is easy so that’s why I get [sic] used to it and my favourite subject is math.
Participant 10: Happy even if we have lots of homework, always having tests…Sometimes it’s good… if they [teachers] say I need to improve… especially in math, but sometimes I really can handle it… so it’s up and down, but I always read to know the technique… for example fractions, decimals, ah percentages. (Masaya rin po, pero maraming homework, palaging test, test, test…Ah minsan maganda… kapag sabi nila kailangan ko mag-improve… sa, lalo na po sa math, minsan basta minsan kaya ko, minsan hindi ko, so up and down, pero palagi ako nagbabasa para maalaman ko yung ano, yung technique paano niya gawin…kunwari fractions, decimals, ah percentages.)
Participant 13: It is really funny because in the Philippines, like, we’re not even Grade 1 and we learn addition. We learn how to do long subtraction, long addition and problem solving.
Children encountered difficulties associated with their Philippine schools.
Participant C found Philippine schooling to be difficult due to the number of different teachers teaching five distinct subjects. Participant 8 found it demanding to carry heavy textbooks to school.
Participant C: Well it was hard, coz we learn like hard things, not like here, we take it slowly and in the Philippines, it’s much like, it’s much harder to understand... Yeah, because, there’s this about five teachers and they’re saying different things about different things, and that gets hard when you don’t remember a bit and then you have to do a test then like you have to remember everything... lots of books, yeah, they have lots of books.
Participant 8: In Philippines, there’s more [subjects], we have about, in Philippines we have about 8 books and they are different
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and but we get like textbooks, you know those grammar books that, those are like thick… the textbooks in Philippines [are] heavier… but we don’t bring the textbook [South Australian school], we bring just only sheets; so that’s why it’s easy [here].
Participants 3, D, 9, 10, and N encountered difficult lessons which were impossible to accomplish on their own, hence adult assistance was required. Homework was an issue for many children. Some mentioned homework as difficult and unexciting. Participants 3 and M were assigned large amounts of homework and Participant 3 had homework as early as Kindergarten. Memorisation of the multiplication tables and other information was difficult for some.
Participant 3: I always do homework. (Yung ginagawa ko lagi yung homework.)
Participant D: I need to memorise things, it’s like they are forcing me to finish... And then I have lots of projects... My uncle helps me... My homework in the Philippines, it’s difficult... you need to do the times tables and the project. (Kailangan ko po ime-memorise yung mga things, parang binibigla na po ako na gawin yun... Tapos eh, madami akong project..Yung tito ko tumutulong]...Yung homework po sa Philippines, ano, mahirap... kasi kailangan ko po gawin yung times tables tapos yung ano, yung project.)
Participant O: Ahmmmm... Hard... because they only give you homework, they give you homework when you are still young, but in Australia they give homework when you’re in Year 3.
Participant 9 found mathematics difficult because they were made to multiply by the thousandth place in Year 4. This was echoed by Participant N who did long mathematical equations while she was in Grade (Year) 2.
Participant 9: Our math subject there is difficult; we are made to multiply by the thousands already. (Mahirap po yung math po dun nasa mga lampas na ng 1000 pinapa-times po nila.)
Participant N: Hard work at school... Ahm..... they make you do, when you didn’t speak English, we had to speak English for a whole week… In work, they made us to spell really, really hard words, Filipino words that I don’t even know. They
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[teachers] make us to do long equations. That was in Year 2.
Children who experienced schooling in the Philippines had varied views regarding school work and related activities. Some found school work manageable, others encountered difficulties. Primary school children in the Philippines followed a school routine that aimed to socialise them to citizenship.
6.2.3. Perspectives on teachers in the Philippines
Children encountered teachers with different personalities. They found some teachers kind, while other teachers were strict. Most children preferred friendly teachers since strict teachers added to their anxiety.
Participant 1: In Philippines, yeah, I wasn’t shy that time. When I don’t have the teacher I want, I cry.
Participant N: My Grade 1 and Kindergarten teachers were really nice. That was the same teacher I had for Grade 1. But my Grade 2 teacher was really strict.
Participant J: Coz when I was in Philippines, I kinda like went coz I was sick [sickly], I didn’t go to school, so I stopped when I was going to Grade 1, I was sick, and my teacher there always hits me when I can’t read something.
Students perceived their teachers’ dispositions and how teachers conducted themselves when dealing with students. Children evaluated teachers’ dispositions as either positive or negative. Teachers, who were amiable, had happy demeanours which made them approachable. Participant 1 cried when she was not assigned a friendly teacher.
Participants C and 10 felt that their teachers in the Philippines were very similar to the ones they had in their South Australian primary schools. Using South Australian teachers as comparative reference group to teachers in the Philippines, children were able to arrive at a definition of a good teacher.
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Participant C: Well we have kind teachers, that’s [sic] really similar.
Participant 10: Teachers in the Philippines have the same temperament [as my teachers here]… For example… happy, always happy, the other one is always mad, always angry. (Parang parehas ang teacher yung ugali sa Pilipinas… Kunwari… happy, palaging happy, yung naman isa palaging mad, palaging angry.)
Filipino teachers defined as strict, gave difficult lessons, assignments, and projects. They asked students to memorise much and verbally or physically abused students who did not accomplish a given task. For example, Participant J who had poor reading skills was hit by a teacher. The experience of Participant J supported the report given by Save the Children Sweden (Global Initiative to End All Corporal Punishment of
Children 2012; Cabilles & Francisco 2008) that corporal punishment for failing to accomplish tasks existed in Philippine schools.
Teachers, who were children’s generalised others, articulated values through the way they behaved toward their students (Pollard 2005). They represented the world of school to children through their behaviour. Children were perceptive of demeanours of the teachers who socialised them to acceptable behaviour in school.
6.2.4. Perspectives on their classmates in the Philippines
Children’s perspectives on their peers in the Philippines were informed by comparative reference group experience with schoolmates in schools in South Australia vis-à-vis the Philippines. Participant 13 found that making friends with classmates in the
Philippines was easy. It was simplified by gender, where boys played with boys and the girls congregated together.
Participant 13: In the Philippines it is better because if you were at the school, this is the how the group will be divided up. All the boys are friends and all the girls are friends. Done. But here you choose your friends… In the Philippines boys will be friends and girls will be friends. But here it is different.
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Participant 7 observed that his classmates did not fight with him in the Philippines.
Comparing this with his school in South Australia, he indicated that there were classmates who teased him due to his physical build.
Participant 7: Nobody fights with me there [school in the Philippines]. (Wala po nag-away sa akin dun eh.)
Participant C: They [classmates] could go to my house like anytime coz they’re close to my house, and I could just go to their house.
Children’s views about their school peers in the Philippines varied. Some stated they had good relationships with their classmates who were also playmates outside of school. Participant 2, who was of small stature and Participant 9 who had a round body figure encountered schoolmates who bullied them. In response, Participant 2 informed the schoolmate’s grandfather, while Participant 9 walked away.
Participant 2: Most of them are bullies… One of them is like, ‘Go away or I’ll punch you like this’ [demonstrates punching with closed fist] but he did it in slow-motion like that… I told on his grandpa… And one day he said, ‘Go away you’re not my friend anymore’ and then the next day he came up to me and said, ‘Come on dude, let’s play.’ But I said, ‘No, I thought you said we’re not friends anymore yesterday.’
Participant 9: There was one who was mean… he/she bossed me around as if I were his/her maid... I just go home… I was just in Grade 5 and he/she was in Grade 6. (Kasi po yung isa po, naging salbahe po… parang inuutus-utusan niya po ako… ginagawa niya po akong yung parang yaya po… nauwi na lang po ako… kasi po Grade 5 pa lang po ako nun, siya Grade 6.)
Children were expected to get along with peers in school. However, some experienced bullying in school. Children were treated unfairly for different reasons, for example physical appearance and stature. Children responded to bullying in school in various ways. Some retaliated and fought back; others walked away and sought adult intervention (Pollard 2005).
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In conclusion, children’s views about schooling in the Philippines encompassed the school’s small physical space yet large enrolment, the complexity of lessons including homework and projects, experience of and regular tests, and having different teachers.
Their experience of schooling in the Philippines prepared them for their schools in South
Australia. This anticipatory socialisation to school helped them manage school work and their relationship with teachers and peers in South Australia.
6.3. Experiences in South Australian schools
This section examines Filipino immigrant children’s perspectives on their experiences of South Australian primary schooling. Children’s perspectives on schooling centred on their daily preparation for school, the school’s physical area and facilities, the nature of school work, and school-related activities. Their views on schooling also included interaction and relationship with teachers and class/schoolmates. The interactionist concepts of self, influence of generalised others (teachers) and reference groups (peers), taking the attitudes and perspectives of others, socialisation, and coping were used in analysing children’s views about their schools, the nature of school work, and relationships with teachers and schoolmates.
Daily preparation for school is also presented since children’s engagement with school did not begin in the physical confines of the school grounds. Children bring aspects of ‘home’ to school (and vice versa) through their daily preparation rituals. As functional entities, home and school mingle in the children’s sense of selves. Children have ‘home selves’ as much as they have ‘school selves’. These selves are situational and emerge as children interact with others.
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6.3.1. Daily preparation for school and related routines
All participants had similar daily activities and routines in preparation for school from having breakfast, taking showers, and brushing teeth. For some participants, breakfast was rice and an accompanying dish. Sometimes children ate cereals or bread.
Participant F: We eat breakfast, take a bath, brush teeth, then put on the uniform, put on lotion, then Mummy prepares our food, we take care of our recess but Mummy prepares lunch... And we have fried rice, I like Filipino sausage for school, we bring as lunch every school day. (Kakain ng breakfast, maligo, mag-toothbrush, tapos mag-u-uniform, mag-lotion, tapos ihahanda ni Mummy yung pagkain namin, kami na lang ang para sa recess, kami ang gagawa ng recess namin, tapos si Mummy sa lunch... And we have fried rice, I like longganisa for school, we baon every school.)
Having breakfast was a taken-for-granted family practice. Some of the older participants prepared their own food for recess while their mothers or fathers prepared their lunch, which often consisted of rice and a Filipino dish. Food from home was one example where children brought their culture to school. Others ordered food from the school canteen.
Children travelled to and from school in different ways. Some participants (A, 1, C,
5, E, F, 6, and 7) walked to school while a few rode bicycles (2, 4). Parents, relatives, and siblings drove participants to school (B, 3, 4, E, H, 8, 9, J, 10, M, 12, 13, N, O, and P) and a number of participants took the bus (A, D, G, J, K, L, M).
Most participants arrived at school before 8:45 AM. At this time, a teacher was present to supervise them. Most children came home from school sometime after 3:00 PM.
They were not permitted to leave the school premises during break times. Thus, a large portion of the children’s daytime hours on school days was spent with schoolmates and teachers.
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Routines such as preparation for school were learnt ‘observations and replication’
(Goffman 1971) which structured children’s cultural repertoires (Rogoff et al. 2007, p. 491).
Children’s cultural repertoires of daily preparations for school, travel, school routines, to post-school activities were also structured by parents, older siblings, teachers, peers, and the children themselves.
Once in the school, children were expected to conform to the school system.
Routines were facilitated and enforced by teachers. Such practices were supported by school policies. Through routines, children learnt expected roles in the classroom.
Participant A: Normally we do prayer time. Prayer time, we sit in a circle and then we pass something, and say our prayers, not out loud, only when you want to speak it out loud, you can. Yeah. And sometimes we do the rosary. And every 2 weeks on Fridays, we go to Assembly.
Participant H: We just stay under the shelter or we play because we came when my teacher came, so I went in my classroom she said there was a job, so I put all the, the job was to put all the name tags out, I did... and then I do my pack up... we first get our folder and our lunch box, we put our lunch box in a right place, put our diaries in the diary box, our reader, fold it in the reader box, and my temptation folder in the temptation box and then we set up our table and then do put a chair in the table. When the bell rings, we pull our hats off and put it in our bag and then we go to line up and then we say good morning to the teacher and then we say good morning to the parents then we go inside, each Monday or Friday, we go inside do the roll and then we go to Assembly.
Most of the participants had the same routine when they entered the classroom.
There were given places for their bags, boxes for lunch orders and school diaries, and they had their own tables and chairs in the classroom. Participants confirmed their presence by roll call or by face recognition using a Smartboard.
Participant 1: When the bell rings I have to go to class... We have the big projector... you have to touch your face off, then it knows you’re here... It’s a Smartboard I think... When you touch your face, your picture disappears, coz they have to take pictures of us, and I touch it, notice I’m here, and I get my stuff and put it on my table. Then I put my diary in the diary
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box, then I sit on the floor and wait for another instruction... [from] Teacher.
Classroom routines were teacher-initiated and served as classroom management strategies to help students organise their time and materials. These routines encouraged student responsibility and orderliness. Students were expected to carry out these routines at the start of class each school day and then follow further instructions from the teacher.
These routines socialised the children into appropriate work habits which formed part of the school’s hidden curriculum (Holmes et al. 2012).
Unlike in the homes of some participants where routines and responsibilities were often negotiated, school routines were established by teachers. Teachers pre-determined routines to which students were expected to conform. Failure to comply with routines had resulted in verbal or written warnings from teachers, suspension of recess, or detention.
Participant 1: I forgot to bring my diary, then, coz she [teacher] warned us to bring our diary tomorrow then I forgot, then I had to miss out recess, and think about what I’ve done… Now, I am more, I find that as more [sic] big deal, because I don’t want to get in trouble again.
Participant 6: I left my homework in school... a worksheet... inside a book... Teacher warned me. (Naiiwan ko yung homework ko sa school... worksheet... Sa book... Pinagalitan ako...Teacher.)
Participant B: We have on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays we have to do the run. And we have to get 6 laps which is 2 kilometres, which is tiring... Yeah, and unless we get a note about how we can’t do the run, and if we don’t get 6 laps, there’s a punishment... It’s like a thing called catch up which is sort of like detention... At lunch times we get 40 minutes of like to eat and play, or anything, and you have to stay in 20 minutes.
Children conformed to teacher-initiated routines so as not to suffer the consequences of failure to comply. A later section deals with disciplinary practices of teachers.
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6.3.2. Perspectives on the school’s physical environment and resources
Children noted the physical space of the school, describing playgrounds, ball courts, and other school structures. Participants A, C, E, and 9 found the physical space of the school bigger than the ones they had known in the Philippines. Participant N’s
Philippine school did not have a playground; while Participant 2 had no library in his former school. This contrasted with what they experienced in their schools in South Australia.
Children used their Philippine schooling experience as comparative reference group.
Participant 2: New school is better…four playgrounds… huge big red thing… building… the last library was inside the big red building, it was only from here to there, to that window, that’s only how big it is.
Participant C: I thought it [school] was big, coz in the Philippines it was a bit smaller than the one here in Australia.
Participant M: It was more bigger [sic], there was like more classrooms. The facilities there were more bigger [sic]. In my school we have a big resource centre and I never had that [in Philippines]. The buildings are different like it is more bigger [sic].
Children appreciated the designated areas for play and learning, and other school activities. Classrooms and laboratories were sites for learning, individually or in groups.
Children enjoyed playing on playgrounds and ball courts. Dining halls and school benches were areas where children took a break from academic work. They also spent break times on the school grounds or in the library.
When children arrived early at school, many headed straight to the playground.
Children like Participants G and H engaged in games with their schoolmates where roles and rules were constructed. The playground was more than a site where peers congregated as playmates and friends.
Participant 2: If the bell hasn’t rung, I would normally go to the library, as you know I’m a bookworm, and, or I would rather, if my
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mum and dad was [sic] there, I would go to the new playground, coz they built a new one.
Participant H: We were playing this fox game, she [a classmate] said that she can go over the playground because she was the mummy fox, I said no, this is the safe place; and then when we go [sic] out [of the classroom] that’s when we can chase [each other], but when we go in the playground, we can’t, we started fighting… the next day, she said ‘sorry’.
Participant 9: I arrive early in school… When a teacher comes out, that is when we’re allowed to play… [We] play handball, sometimes I go to the library to play computer. (Maaga pa po ng konti… Pag may lumabas pong teacher dun po, ayun po, pwede na pong maglaro… handball po, minsan po napunta po ako sa library para mag-computer.)
School structures not only provided learning and play opportunities but they also embodied symbolic significance. Children ascribed a system of meanings to the physical structures which pertained to their varied interests. For example, participants who enjoyed reading and computer games headed straight to the school library, while others found the playground more exciting.
Participant G: In the morning, I play in the playground, even though I’m too big for it, I still play on it, coz I don’t wanna like be bored and I wanna play in the playground and sometimes we go to this cat and mouse bars or like you chase each other around the bars, yeah it’s really fun.
Physical structures for learning and play in schools gave the children interactive learning activities that were important for their cognitive and meta-cognitive development
(Vygotsky 1967; Piaget 1951). For example, playgrounds were sites for pretend play as illustrated by Participant G. Thinking occurred in pretend play, through which children assumed the attitudes of generalised others (Mead 1934).
Through these structures in the school, children also learnt to develop affective skills through a disciplined system of control by teachers and school administrators.
Children overcame boredom by playing in the school grounds as demonstrated by
Participant G. In addition, Participant 10 illustrated that play interaction and kinaesthetic
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activities in these school structures not only taught children psychomotor dexterity but also sportsmanship.
Participant 10: Soccer is my favourite [sport in school]… Midfield position … we compete with other schools… we often win. [On defeat] sometimes we lose and I sometimes think that I caused it… I try to forget about it and I tell myself it’s just a game… it’s not real… it’s not real life, or that your life does not depend on the game... It’s just a game. (Sa soccer po yun pong pinakagusto ko… Midfield po… yung nagco-competition kaming other school po… kami po yung nanalo… [on defeat] Minsan po… Ano parang meron akong ginawang ano pangit o ganyan… Basta kinalimutan ko na lang po, sabi ko sa isip ko, game lang yun, hindi naman totoo… hindi naman siya life, o kaya ano yung life mo nandoon nakaganyan… Game lang.)
6.3.3. Perspectives on school work and other related activities
Children’s perspectives on school work included their knowledge of the English language, academic subject preferences and their views on pedagogical methods.
Children also developed views about homework and other co-curricular or extra-curricular activities. These provided insights into children’s selves, their meaning construction, and the influence of others.
Children joined South Australian primary schools with an understanding of English as the main language of instruction. Their views on their experiences of schooling were informed by familial socialisation on the importance of education and prior schooling experiences in the Philippines.
6.3.3.1. Learning the English language
English was a core subject in the Philippine Basic Education Curriculum and most schools in the Philippines (mostly the private school system) had English as the medium of instruction along with the Filipino language. Thus, some participants (1, B, C, 10, J, 11, M,
13, N, O) knew American style English when they came to Australia. Most participants
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learnt Australian English in their current schools. Some (5, F, 6, 7, and 9) were required to attend English as Second Language (ESL) classes.
Participant 10: My school in the Philippines… ah, we speak English in school …Yes, when I came here I was already good in English, I am good in reading but I was not as good in writing, but I can read; writing was my only weakness, but now I know how to write. (Yun pong eskwelahan ko sa Pilipinas… ah, nag-English kami sa school... Opo,pero po, yun pong kararating ko rito, magaling ako sa English po, magaling akong mag-read, pero di po ako masyadong nakaka-write, pero nakaka-read ako, yun lang po yung kahinaan ko, pero ngayon alam ko na.)
Participant F: We go to ESL, English and Literacy, so, in the first year we have to draw our self and we have this big map and then we have a string and then we put our name there… And some of the Filipinos from other class, like my brother, he goes to ESL to do that… Yeah, for primary, we have a different ESL teacher…Yeah, it’s fun.
Thus, before coming to Australia, most children knew how to speak and write in
English, either from their schooling in the Philippines or from their interactions with parents who sometimes spoke English. Most of the parents of the participants, prior to coming to
Australia, took the International English Language Testing System (IELTS) and met the minimum required English competency band score. This gives an insight into the ability of many Filipinos as English-language users. Their children were inevitably socialised to the
English language in the home, along with their mother tongues. These children were bilingual at the very least. This was one of the reasons for the apparent ability of Filipino immigrant children to adapt well to the Australian school system.
6.3.3.2. Subject preferences and their pedagogical features
In Chapter 2, it was mentioned that the Philippine Basic Education Curriculum was content-heavy and loaded with ‘minimum’ competencies that students are encouraged to acquire and achieve. Most participants, especially those who experienced at least three years of schooling in the Philippines (Participants C, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, J, 11, L, N, 13, and 14),
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had been exposed to this content-heavy curriculum and its accompanying pedagogical strategies. When these children commenced primary school in South Australia, most did not find it difficult. Children’s views about liking or disliking subjects and certain teaching strategies provided insights into certain curricular and pedagogical realities they encountered in their new schools and how they responded to these. These preferences reflected their reactions to school (Woods 1979).
Based on accounts of the participants regarding their subject-related school work,
Mathematics (50%) and English (30%) were among their favourite subjects. Twenty per cent (20%) named Arts and 17% mentioned Physical Education, Sports, and Fitness. Only a few participants specified Science and Technology (13%), Studies of Societies and
Environment (SOSE) and History (7%), and Religion (7%). Only one participant mentioned
Music as her favourite subject. Table 6.1 summarises the children’s favourite subjects in school.
For many, Mathematics was their favourite subject. This was because of prior learning in the Philippines. With lessons that they found easy and were already familiar with, they felt confident doing maths. Sometimes they received verbal rewards when they accurately accomplished mathematical problems.
Participant 9: Math... In maths you learn about numbers... It’s like [math] is more advanced in our country... what we study here is for Grade 3... [Math] is hard in the Philippines; they make you multiply by thousands. (Math... Maths po matututo ka po dun ng number... Para pong ano, para pong advanced po yung dun po sa atin... para pong pang-Grade 3 lang po yung pinag-aaralan po namin... Dito po... Mahirap po yung math po dun [Philippines] nasa mga lampas na ng 1,000 pinapa-times po nila.)
Participant D: Math…because it’s easy…I do well in maths [according to teacher]... Very good. (Math… kasi madali lang po silang gawin… Magaling daw po ako sa maths... Very good.)
Participant E: Math… We play maths games [on the computer]… cool maths games.
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Participant 5: Math… Ah coz I want to learn about engineering… I’ll do the building I think…
Table 6.1 Favourite subjects of the participants
School subject Participants (n=30) Total %
Mathematics D, 4, E, 5, 7, 8, G, H, 9, I, J, 10, N, 14, O 15 50
English, Literacy, Spelling A, B, C, D, H, K, M, 13, 14 9 30
Art C, D, F, 6, H, I 6 20
Sports, Fitness, PE 1, 2, J, K, P 5 17
Science, Technology H, 12, N, 14 4 13
SOSE, History 5, M 2 7
Religion K, L 2 7
Music F 1 3
Note: Some participants gave multiple responses.
For other children, English was their favourite subject because they were good at writing, achieved good grades, and received awards for these. Participant B linked her love of English to teacher-initiated activity, which she enjoyed.
Participant A: English... Because I get good grades at it and I really understand it.
Participant B: There’s one that I think my teacher made up, it’s called Contract… Yeah mostly English, yeah, where she gives us a sheet… No, you just have to just, tasks and topics, like it says draw this and write about that, and it’s really fun… Yeah, and you say, ‘By the end of the year, I’m gonna have this much done’… Because, after a fortnight, she changes, she gives us a new sheet to work on.
Participant M: It probably would be English… because I love writing…like writing reports, different structures... We have a day called academic excellence award… I have got one which was for English which was nice.
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For some, Science was their favourite subject because of its associated learning activities such as doing experiments.
Participant 12: Science… because you get to have experiments sometimes; and you get to test out what will happen, if air or water is heavier; and I got to see that the water is heavier. We made some cups that… when you talk to it you can hear it, only if it’s straight; if it’s wobbly like this, it won’t work.
Children formed preferences for subjects because of academic competence, rewards, and pedagogical features. Firstly, academic competence (demonstration of understanding, writing and problem-solving skills) pertained to student’s abilities, interests, and personal motivations for learning certain subjects. Participants’ familiarity with the topics— due to prior learning in the Philippines— contributed to their academic competence. This gave children a sense of efficacy and self-confidence in the subjects.
Secondly, children developed a liking for a particular subject because of rewards such as verbal approvals, good grades, and certificates. Positive reinforcements from teachers played an instrumental role in children’s subject preferences.
Lastly, certain pedagogical aspects also influenced children’s subject preferences.
Such pedagogical techniques included the use of learning-by-doing activities, experiments, contracts that promoted autonomy in implementing tasks, games and simulation activities, group work, and homework.
Play through educational computer games and in group activities was part of children’s classroom interaction. Through these subject-related activities, children’s academic interests were promoted. They learnt to cooperate and collaborate with classmates as illustrated by Participant I.
Participant D: We play... we play in the computer... Sometimes we have an activity... Then sometimes we play math games. (Nagpe- play po kami... Nagpe-play sa computer... Sometimes po may activity po kaming gagawin... Tapos eh sometimes magpe-play lang kami... Maths games.)
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Participant I: She [teacher] splits us in groups of 3 or groups of 4 people, and we make posters and like those posters were to stop kids from bullying other little kids and like why plants are important… They [group mates] were all boys… my teacher doesn’t pick me to be in a boy group, she had pop sticks and there were names, then she picked my name with boys… I asked her if I can move groups but she said no… We had to get another one [poster paper] coz the other boy ruined it, he was colouring it the wrong way… We had to do another one, but when that boy was ahm trying to ahm, trying to help, the other boy tried to stop him coz he thought that he was gonna ruin it again.
Homework was viewed differently by respondents. Many enjoyed doing homework and found it easy because it involved their favourite subject. Some struggled with homework and had to seek help from parents and older siblings. A number of participants had homework every day. For participants who had studied in the Philippines, homework was not unexpected. In Australia, participants were relieved at not having a lot of homework or pleased that homework was easy. Some participants did not like homework but did it anyway. Failing to complete homework meant missing out on after-school activities such as television viewing.
Homework involved researching a topic to be discussed the following day, doing a project, solving mathematical problems and exercises, memorising words and vocabulary, reading, or finishing an incomplete task that should have been done in school.
Participant 1: Spelling and sometimes if we don’t finish the work, we finish it for homework... We get it every day... It’s like every day routine, like learning spelling words, read, and if we have a project we have to work on it… [Mum and dad helps] sometimes, when I struggle with it [algebra].
Participant G: At times, when, coz the teacher like she says if you haven’t finished your work or anything that you want to finish, you can do it during break time or you can choose to do it as homework.
Participant J: Homework ahm, it’s easy coz there’s only a little bit, yeah... After school, I do my homework, eat, and watch TV... do my homework first before I play.
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Children faced difficulties with subjects, even their favourite ones. The following examples demonstrated how children coped with difficulties in academic work.
Participant 6: I felt they [classmates] are fluent in English and I am still learning… I felt sad… But I tried to forget about it, I am no longer shy, I respond… even when I don’t understand some English words, I think about it, I sometimes look for it in the dictionary, I read about it… [I hear about it on TV]…I ask teacher or search in the computer, it’s allowed. (Kasi sila marunong nang mag-English ako di pa masyado… malungkot… Hindi na po na, kinakalimutan na ito, hindi na ko shy, sumasagot na… Kahit na may hindi ako naintindihan na English, iniisip ko, ano ba yan, iniisip ko kasi may nakikita ako sa dictionary, nababasa ko… [napapanood sa TV]… magtatanong po sa teacher or magsi-search sa computer, pwede naman.)
Participant B: I really struggle with maths… I usually have this maths homework that I have to finish, and I usually ask my brother for help.
Participant D: Science… sometimes easy, at times hard, I cannot complete the task… I ask support from friends… sometimes they work with me. (Science… minsan easy, tapos hard yung, hindi mo ma-complete yung tanong… Nagpapa-support ako sa friends ko… minsan nasa tabi ko.)
In coping with difficult subjects and homework, participants sought help from siblings and parents. In school, they sought help from teachers and classmates. Asking help from others was a strategy that children developed. Moreover, there were many instances when children used the internet for information regarding school work. This was also a coping strategy in dealing with difficult academic tasks (to be discussed in Chapter
7) that the children developed.
In summary, preferences for particular academic subjects were related to student competence and interests, use of prior understandings and skills, rewards for doing well, and engaging teaching strategies. Participant 5 put this issue of subject preference in perspective when he mentioned Maths as his favourite subject because he wanted to study engineering. If sustained, preferences for academic subjects served anticipatory socialisation purposes when it came to future academic work and pursuits, work
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preferences, and even related non-academic activities. When it came to difficult academic tasks, the children sought help from significant others.
6.3.3.3. Involvement in co-curricular activities
Children’s schooling involved activities that were accomplished outside the contexts and confines of subject-specific classes. These experiences formed part of the children’s school realities.
School-related activities included co-curricular activities like sports, religious assemblies, and school community events. They involved field trips and camping. Sports
Day and Harmony Day not only promoted physical activity, but also provided opportunities for them to appreciate different cultures.
Participant G: Oh yeah, we have Sports Day which is normally held in Term 4, which is nearly at the end of the year, and it’s this thing where the whole school like participating, there’re a lot of events… it’s really fun, like you can do like heaps of running activities and heaps of just kidding around activities.
Participant K: This Wednesday we are having Harmony Day... we made posters and drew anything we want about our country. I drew the Philippine flag... just the flag because I’m the only Filipino in class. The others made drawings of food like noodles, the Vietnamese... they wore national costumes. (Kasi sa Wednesday yata Harmony Day namin... nag-make kaming ano parang posters, tapos nag-draw kami anything we want pero country mo. Ni-draw ko flag ng Philippines... Flag lang po kasi ako lang isang Filipino sa klase... Yung iba nag-draw ng food like noodles yung sa Vietnamese... clothes iwe-wear nila na costume, national costume gagamitin nila.)
Participant H: On Mondays we do like praise and worship and then we learn a story from the Bible, on Fridays, we go there [Assembly] and we like sit down… if it’s somebody’s turn, like a Grade’s turn to do Assembly on Friday… they ask us questions and then when it’s our turn… we go up the stage and share our stuff.
Children were involved in the preparations for these events. They participated in these school’s co-curricular events either individually or in groups. These activities
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promoted classroom and school solidarity. As with school routines, these also contributed to the social order of the school community.
Field trips and camping provided students with alternative learning experiences.
Participants went to farms (J), wildlife sanctuaries (G, 8), the city zoo (9), museums (H), and water treatment plants (5). Many had aquatics activities (B, F, I, 6, 7, 9, 10, L, 13). Two participants (1 and 3) experienced a week-long trip to Canberra.
Participant 1: We had a trip to Canberra. The whole unit, 6-7 unit, it was a bus trip, it was 16 hours, we had to wake up early, we had to be there at 6 in the morning. There was a movie on, yeah like a TV there, sometimes the movie was boring, like, I don’t really like Narnia. I couldn’t sleep, I chat to my friends and we played games together. We prank my friend while he was sleeping... we arrived in Canberra like, 10 or something.
Participant 13: I actually went to one this week. I went to camp in Mylor. It was like 2 hours, one hour drive near Hahndorf. It is actually really a very good experience… It really helped me with my communication skills because in all the activities, we did like canoeing, which is like, you’re with a few people and you have to work together, like which way are you gonna paddle.
Through field trips and travel, children learnt to adjust their attitudes and habits as organised responses (Mead 1934). Children prepared for these trips. They learnt to be patient en route and to entertain themselves when bored. At the destination, children learnt to work together with teachers and peers while adjusting to a new environment.
This section on children’s perspectives about school work and related activities covered children’s ability to communicate in the English language, their views on subject preferences and pedagogical features that influenced these preferences. With prior exposure to the English language in the Philippines, most children were aware that their ability to speak and understand the English language was helpful in their adjustment to school. They formed preferences for subjects because of prior learning experiences in the
Philippines, positive reinforcement from their teachers in South Australia, and an engaging
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pedagogy. In addition, co-curricular activities for children provided opportunities for socialisation to school values and acceptable behaviour.
6.3.4. Perspectives on teachers
Classroom interaction was usually initiated by teachers. Interaction was regulated by rules which involved teacher-student and student- classmates/schoolmates relationships. Children’s perspectives on their teachers suggested certain features in the classroom and school that involved roles regarding care and responsibility for students.
Participants identified teacher dispositions, teaching styles, and disciplinary practices of teachers that they found helpful in their learning. As much as a presentation of the teachers’ selves, these qualities of teachers facilitated effective classroom interaction, encouraged social behaviour, and student responsibility. These teacher qualities promoted positive outcomes and achievement (Hughes, Wu, Kwok, Villarreal, & Johnson 2012;
Lewis, Romi, & Roache 2012; Skinner & Pitzer 2012). Children’s views about their teachers were organised into three categories: dispositional, pedagogical, and disciplinary.
6.3.4.1. Dispositional
Children were aware of how their teachers presented themselves. This outward manifestation of teachers’ inner selves is what Woods (1979) referred to as ‘disposition’.
Dispositions varied from day to day and were influenced by a number of factors that also involved situations outside the school context. Some children found certain teacher dispositions encouraging and helpful as the following illustrate.
Participant A: Because she’s nice... I dunno how, but she’s just nice, her face and how she talks... I have good teachers.... Because they’re nice... They talk nice and act nice and be a nice teacher... and then they help me out.
Participant D: She’s jolly... sometimes funny... because if she says something by mistake, we also laugh... she says, ‘Ay!’ (Masayahin po siya… Tapos eh nakakatuwa po siya… Kasi po
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kung may things po kami na ginagawa, ano, kung may nagkamali siyang nasabi, tatawa rin kami… Sinasabi niya po ‘Ay!’)
Participant J: My English teacher always tell [sic] me to come to her if I have problem and I come to her like say what happened and she asks me if I want my other teachers to know, but I said no coz I can like handle it, yeah.
For children, teachers who showed a sense of humour, who made themselves available, and who were approachable— either by their demeanour or by openly telling students to share problems and difficulties with them— created a positive environment for learning and encouraged student participation.
Children were sensitive to teacher demeanours that were less encouraging. Many refer to their teachers’ disposition as grumpy, mean, or strict. Students learnt to adjust to situations involving these dispositions and complied with tasks at hand.
Participant 1: Sometimes, they’re like mean... Like there’s one teacher 2 years ago when I was Year 4, he was kinda mean, or maybe he’s not mean, or maybe he would just protect us and make us learn.
Participant 2: Sometimes grumpy... When they’re like, when they have headaches or sore throats, or when they have something really important and we’re being too slow... I just quicken up a little coz [whispers] I’m lazy.
Participant G: The one I’m having right now is kinda strict, yeah about handing the report, our homework on time. Well I’m ok with that but sometimes you get scared when she’s mad at someone, yeah, but yeah, she’s ok... I just like sit there shocked.
Participants understood the reasons behind some not-so-encouraging demeanours from teachers like shouting or acting irritably. They attributed such dispositions to teacher illness or to misbehaving students. They took the role of teachers and adjusted their responses. They complied with expectations and did not draw attention to themselves.
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6.3.4.2. Pedagogical
Children identified teacher qualities helpful to their learning. Participants (A, 1, 6, and K) appreciated teachers who gave clear instructions and questions and repeated those when necessary.
Participant K: [On teacher] S/he teaches the instruction and gives us what we need to do... S/he calls students who need to help and goes to the floor... to do math that is like a challenge, like ‘I have eaten all the ice cream, how many are left?’ but harder. (Iti-teach ung instruction po, ibiigay sa amin tapos kailangan namin gawin... Nitatawag niya mga people na kailangan maghelp pupunta sa floor. .. do ko kaya math parang po siyang challenge, like ‘may ice cream ako nikain ko lahat, how many naleft?’, pero harder.)
Participant A: I have good teachers because they’re nice. They talk nice and act nice and be a nice teacher. They repeat the question again [sic] and they say what it really means.
Participants A, 1, 6, G, 7, I, K, and J valued encouragement and clear explanations from teachers.
Participant 1: Like, when the teachers say don’t be shy to put your hands up, if you need help... sometimes when I don’t get the subject or thing.
Participant 6: The teachers are good, I have a male teacher not female... If I don’t know how to do my work, I ask him a question and then he would help me... tell me how to do the work... in maths and how to make a summary, that’s it. (Mabait po sila, ang teacher ko lalaki hindi babae... Kasi po pag hindi ko alam ang work ko, tinatanong ko po tapos sinasabi po panong ganyan, tinutulungan... yung pano gagawin yung work... oo math, tsaka sa summary ganyan.)
A number of participants (E, G, 10, and 12) appreciated teachers who allowed them respite from classroom routines or who were not strict about school work. Participant
12 demonstrated how his teacher made him rest his head on the table while in the middle of a writing task. These teachers were flexible in implementing student work.
Participant 12: When I had to do 17 lines.. of writing... ? I still have to do it; but I just ahm, do this [demonstrates his head resting on the
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table]... because I ask her if I can have a lie down... She says yes.
Participant 10: She is nice because we don’t do a lot of work and she doesn’t give much homework; and if we have a class discussion, we keep calm, we read, it’s a bit boring but it allows us to rest, I lean like this holding the book that I’m reading. (Kasi mabait po siya tsaka di po kami masyadong gumagawang work, tsaka di niya po kami binibigyan masyadong homework, konti-konti lang; tsaka kapag meron kaming class discussion, calm lang kami, magbabasa lang kami, parang boring pero nakaka-rest rin kami, ako nakasandal lang po ako ganyan, naka-hold ng libro tsaka nagre-read lang.)
Participant E: We lie down on the floor, and we just talk quietly… For 1 hour… to relax and have a nap.
Participant G: Well the past teachers I’ve had we’re really nice, they weren’t that strict about school work.
For children certain pedagogical approaches of teachers were valued. These included giving clear instructions, encouragement, clarification, and respite from classroom tasks.
6.3.4.3. Disciplinary
Children accepted the way teachers managed classroom routines and instilled discipline. Classroom interaction was often organised, mediated, and regulated by rules that teachers communicated and implemented in the classroom. These classroom rules reflected the teacher’s values, the school’s values, even those values in the society. Rules in the classroom (and in school) were firmly implemented and accompanied by courses of action and clear sanctions from teachers when violations or misdemeanours occurred.
The following illustrate children’s perspectives on their teachers’ responses to student misconduct.
Teachers coped with noisy and talkative students by verbally reprimanding them.
Sanctions for inattentive behaviour included yard duties.
Participant 7: [The teacher] sometimes shouts... I have a naughty classmate... as for me, I am not noisy all the time. (Minsan
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nagsa-shout siya... meron po yung classmate ko ano, makulit... Palagi akong, hindi ako maingay.)
Participant H: T, he’s talkative... he got into trouble [with teacher], not me, he was so talkative, he was talking to E... and then he got a yellow dot... yellow dot means warning and red dot means consequence; he had a consequence and he had to pick up 20 pieces of paper, if he didn’t do that he has to pick 40.
Participant M: And then when my teacher was talking I was telling my friends something. It wasn’t bad or anything. It was like work or something. Then teacher told me not to talk while she was talking... It was weird. It really made me to think. I kind of just sat down, yeah. If I get told off I won’t do it again. But some people do.
Teachers took action when they discovered cheating, lying, and other inappropriate behaviours.
Participant B: Well, I had to sit next to this one girl and I think she was cheating in maths test, coz she has these answers, all right, but she’s really nice, and she’s kinda clingy at times... I told the teacher... And she gave her another test… she just got another test that was it.
Participant F: And sometimes they [classmates] tell lies, yeah, most of the kids in my school… They all say, like always after lunch we have silent reading and then my teacher always have to deal with it… They talk and then they chat… many teacher believe on, like not on naughty people, so she [teacher] didn’t believe on them, so I didn’t actually go to buddy class but they did.
Most teachers regarded theft, student altercations, harassment, and bullying as serious disciplinary concerns. Schools had clear procedures and sanctions for dealing with students who engaged in these. Children understood that these situations were dealt with by the class teacher but could also involve the school principal.
Participant I: Well, ahm, some students go to timeout coz they do something bad… they bully people and steal stuff… Ahm, tell the teacher if I see someone bullying another person... He went to timeout for a week, every recess and lunch.
Participant 8: The teacher will tell to the kid not to do it again and say sorry to him or her, and if I heard that you did it again to somebody, you’ll go in a bench and miss some on recess... Play, not to do [play]... you’re allowed to talk anyone if
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they’re on the bench... But you’re gonna miss the recess all the day.
Participant 9: This A [name of male classmate] fought with someone… he hit a girl in Year 4 who was taller than him, he’s in Year 5… the girl retaliated by kicking him at the back… he cried. They were sent to the focus room [by teacher] and were not allowed to play for the whole day. (Si A… nakipag-away na po siya… sa babae, himambalas po nung lalaki… mas matangkad po yung babae, Year 5 po siya eh yun po yung babae po eh Year 4… talo pa rin po yung lalaki… hinampas po tapos po umiyak, dito po sa likod gawa ng sinipa po nang malakas… pinapunta po sa focus room… hindi po sila makakalaro nang buong araw.)
Most children were aware of the consequences of physical violence. Depending on the gravity of an offence, students involved in physical violence could face either a school- wide or system-wide disciplinary action. School-wide measures for issues related to physical violence include timeout from classroom or detention; while system-wide measures include suspension, exclusion, and expulsion (Department of Education and
Child Development 2007).
In response to disciplinary actions imposed by teachers, children conformed as a coping strategy (Woods 2012b; Pollard 1982). Many complied with rules and did not draw attention to themselves. Others learnt from the experience of classmates who were reprimanded as the following participants exemplified.
Participant A: I have to behave in school… I’m shy to get in trouble. But the boys get in trouble a lot… That is why I always listen to the teacher.
Participant 4: When the teacher is talking you can’t talk to other people because that’s not listening, they think you’re not listening.
Participant M: I don’t do anything naughty. I try like follow the rules. I don’t get into trouble at all.
Participants took the attitudes and perspectives of teachers (and classmates) when formulating their responses to teachers’ disciplinary practices. Additionally, when participants avoided trouble, they used the Filipino value of fear of losing face (hiya) as
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mentioned in Chapter 2. Most children acquired this from parental socialisation and assumed the perspective of their parents.
Teachers’ disciplinary practices on behaviour and academic tasks contained other elements. Children were motivated by teachers who rewarded good behaviour and academic performance as the following illustrated.
Participant B: My main teacher, she says I’m smart... And she says, ‘coz sometimes I talk to her like about home and she says that I’m really smart and everything.
Participant G: I don’t really hear bad [things about me] or hopefully not... that I should keep it up... she [teacher] encourages me a lot... in a way I feel special.
Participant H: Mrs R [School Principal], she gives all out these certificates; I got one about doing neat handwriting and then my first day, on my first Friday, they gave me a certificate for sitting well on Grade 2 class... I was happy and then we had to shake her hand and then we get the certificate and sit down.
Participant 4: Ms W is a good teacher, and she teaches us good [sic] and every Friday, we got drama... today and we get [sic] lollies.
Participants sought praise and rewards from teachers. The content of the praise and the material rewards were as important as the context in which they were given.
Rewards came in the form of social gestures such as ‘thumbs up’ for a job well done, words of encouragement and positive feedback. Material tokens like lollies, star cut-outs or smiley stickers, and certificates given by teachers were symbolic rewards for positive social behaviour and academic achievement. These motivated students to perform better, encouraged desirable behaviour in class, and promoted self-discipline.
In summary, children’s perspectives on teachers involved three aspects: dispositional, pedagogical, and disciplinary. Children liked teachers who had positive dispositions such as warmth and a sense of humour. They were sensitive to these positive attitudes and took those attitudes unto themselves. In response to not-so-encouraging teachers’ dispositions, children coped by adjusting to the situations such as keeping quiet
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when a teacher became annoyed. In terms of pedagogical delivery, they preferred teachers who gave clear instructions, encouraged questioning, assisted in student work, and gave respite from tasks. As far as disciplinary issues were concerned, children recognised teachers’ responses to misbehaviour and appreciated teachers’ positive reinforcements. Children assumed the attitude of teachers and classmates as they assessed their own behaviours. They conformed to rules to avoid teacher sanctions.
6.3.5. Perspectives on peers at school
Children’s perspectives on peers, peer relationships, and peer activities provided insights into their social world and their coping responses to school. In Chapter 3, it was mentioned that peer socialisation is a process through which children produce their own peer culture and identity. The school was a source of peers for children and a site for building friendships and experiencing rivalries. It was also a site for the development of shared perspectives that allowed them to manage daily activities in school and outside of school.
All children liked going to school. Reasons for this included encouraging teachers, school facilities, playgrounds, and computers. However, most participants liked going to school because of their classmates.
Researcher: Why do you like going to school?
Participant 11: To see my friends, that’s it.
Participant N: Because my friends are there.
For many participants, peer companionship took place even before the school commenced each day. Those who came early to school often played in the playground.
Daily interaction and socialisation in school for children began in the playground with classmates and peers rather than the classroom and with the teacher.
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Participant I: Before the bell… play at the playground… Some of my friends from last year…chasey.
Most went to school to spend time with peers although this did not mean that they did not interact with friends outside of school. However, being with friends at school was spending ‘real time’ with them through talk and play.
Participant 13: Because those are the only real time I see my friends.
Participant M: Ahm.... I do at lunch and recess. There is [sic] not a lot of Year 7 girls this year in my school. So we just sit on the playground just like on the cement…Then we’ll sit there and we all will talk. One time, all of the Year 7, we all played chasey around the school. Mostly like near, because we have got huge ovals so we usually go around the playground or the oval or we usually played chasey around the school with all the Year 7s sometimes. But now we just sat down and talk and all that. There’s not a lot of Year 7s but we all know each other.
For children, going to school not only meant academic work but also to spend time with peers. The school was a context for children socialising other children not only to school work but also to shared values.
6.3.5.1. Characteristics of friends
Participants were aware of the ethnicities of schoolmates and friends. This enabled them to define themselves as Filipinos and Asians by comparing themselves to others. It was common among the participants (1, C, 6, G, H, 11, 12, M, P, 14) that their
Australian classmates were white Australians, but there were English, Greeks, and Italians, too.
Participant E: [On classmates] Chinese and Indian... more Australians.
Participant 11: [On friends] Mostly they are Australians, most of them, and yeah, they’re all white.
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Participants were not only aware of ethnicities but categorised such ethnicities. For instance, they classified Australian-born classmates with Chinese parentage as Chinese or
Asians. Participants, who spent a longer time with schoolmates or who formed closer relationships with classmates, were able to distinctly identify their ethnicity.
Participant 4: [On schoolmates] There was [sic] only English and Aboriginal.
Participant 6: There are Filipinos, Somalians, there are Guineans, Filipinos, and Australians. (May Pilipino, may taga-Somalia, meron din taga-Guinea, Pilipino rin, tsaka Australian.)
Participant 9: All of my classmates are not Aussies... There are Italians, Korean, there are Vietnamese, and there are even Muslims. (Lahat po kaming magkakaklase hindi po Aussie... Meron pa nga pong Italyano... Yung Korean po, may Vietnamese, may Muslim pa.)
Ethnic awareness was learnt in the home and subsequently reinforced at school.
Participants stated whether a classmate was Italian, Korean, or Australian. This related to children’s ability to distinguish between members of different races. Various studies (Byrd
2012; Quintana 2012; Rogers et al. 2012; Quintana 1998) indicate that children develop this ability at age 3-5 years by observing phenotypical characteristics like skin colour and shape of the eyes. By age 6-10 years, this ability focuses on social categorisation and social comparison using behavioural and abstract ethnic features like language and ancestry. In this present study, participants demonstrated this ability to categorise ethnicities.
Furthermore, identifying ethnic and racial categorisations, or in a broader context, cultural socialisation, proceeded from what Hughes, Rodriguez, Smith, Johnson,
Stevenson, and Spicer (2006) referred to as ‘parental practices that teach children about their racial or ethnic heritage and history; that promote cultural customs and traditions; and that promote children’s cultural, racial, and ethnic pride, either deliberately or implicitly’ (p.
749). Discussed in Chapter 5 were some examples of these practices that included
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exposure to various cultural or ethnic celebrations, music, stories, and ethnic food with an emphasis on children speaking their native language.
Socialisation of ethnic differences also happened in schools. Through interaction with classmates and teachers, children learnt about the ethnicities of their peers. This was one reason why a number of participants characterised their school as ‘multicultural’.
Participant 13: I made friends. They were [sic] a multicultural school so I had friends from Africa… his name was Q and my other friend was Y and I’m pretty sure he was Sri Lankan. They were both really good friends because we stick together and then maybe because we’re little we would cry because someone made fun of us or whatever... My best, out of all them is J, he’s from India.
Despite children’s awareness of the ethnicities of peers, they did not make friends based on ethnicity. However, a few (D, K, and J) suffered when they were mistreated by classmates because of their ethnicity as illustrated by Participant J. Children coped with rejection and exclusion by walking away and by searching for friendlier peers with whom to associate.
Participant J: They are loud coz I pretty much hang out with like guys coz some of the girls in my school are a bit mean to me... coz I was like the only Asian in my class... Oh they like look at me and then they talk about me and yeah... I just walk away.
Certain characteristics and behaviour enabled children to make a distinction between ‘close friends’ and ‘friends’, whom they loosely referred to as schoolmates.
Participants B and M referred to classmates as friends, whether or not they played with one other. For children, being a friend involved being treated well as the following participants explained. Friends who treat others well were described as helpful and kind.
Participant A: I play with them a lot. We don’t fight…good, because they are nice to me, they’re kind... because they are helpful, like when I’m not in a game, they always say, wanna play? I say, ‘Yes, thank you.’
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Participant C: They treat me well, they give me lots of things and they really like, they play with me if they see me alone. (They treat me well, they give me lots of things and they really like, parang ano, parang nag-pe-play sila with me kung alone ako.)
Participant M: We don’t treat anyone by their religion and all that. And, we have gone through that [core values discussion]... They just treat me like a normal person like their friend... I just treat them back with respect. We just have fun.
For children, treating friends well (or being treated well) meant being friendly in action and words, for example, inviting them to play and respecting them regardless of religion or ethnicity. Friends who were ‘nice’ were partners in play and other activities like sports. Participant 2 identified with sporty and video-game type friends.
Participant 2: They’re nice, we have lots in common, and we like each other as friends, and we’re both pretty silly… Going on the table and going, ‘Wiggle, wiggle, wiggle, yeah,’ you know the band, LMFAO… With my classmates, we both like sports, for my sports ones [friends] and we both like video games for my videogame type [friends].
Getting along with friends and having things in common with them made school life enjoyable. Good friends also helped with school work and homework. Friends were described as supportive.
Participant C: And I like all the things that my friends used to do with me and I get to keep all those things… projects with my friends and they let me keep our project.
Participant 3: But mostly [friends], those I really know already, those who are really nice, they support one another… they help… sometimes with homework. (Pero mostly, na talagang kilala ko na, yung nice talaga, yung nagsu-support yung one another, yung hini-help… Minsan anong gagawin namin, pati minsan yung sa homework.)
Participant F: And then my friends sometimes go with me to the classroom and we read together.
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Children interacted with peers from various ethnicities. They enjoyed doing common activities together. They formed close friendships and characterised their peers as friendly, helpful, and supportive. Children viewed their peers as a source of support for school work. Peers provided care, friendship, and company that, in a way, allowed children to enjoy school life.
6.3.5.2. Activities with friends
Children’s views about their activities with friends provided insights into the mutual influence friends had. Peer socialisation experiences allowed children to cope with school and with peer relationships.
For Mead (1934) the self arises in play and games. Playing with friends was the most enjoyable activity that children looked forward to at school. ‘Play with friends’ in school was one of the reasons they liked going to school. Play included making up rules that friends accepted and upheld.
Participant N: My friends are really nice to me… All of them are Aussies… We play this game called Zombie Rules, just like chasey, except someone has to be a zombie… Have to try to get the people, try to get the people so the zombie can get brains.
Play involved other symbols which included written communication and ‘secret handshakes’.
Participant H: I started making friends with O and then... there’s this Korean girl, she’s HT, she’s the smallest girl in my class, and then the new girl M, we started playing together and then we started making best friends... we write notes to each other... we give each other notes of how we are doing in school and... We just started it... And then we made up a secret handshake... We give each other notes of how we are doing in school and… We just started it… and then we made up a secret handshake… And then I told her that she’s my second, she’s my best friend in school and then she became really nice and she plays with me all the time; she asks me if people can play, and I said, ‘Yes, why not’.
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A secret handshake was like speaking a language that only close friends understood. While play among peers created a trust relationship, the handshake symbolised and authenticated group membership.
There were situations when language was used to authenticate a friend’s entry into a group. Language also authenticated a friend’s affiliation among peers, especially when they appeared to come from the same ethnic group. A few children shared their experiences in breaking the ice with Filipino classmates by speaking in Tagalog.
Participant 10: There was a Filipino who came and my teacher told me, ‘Go talk to this boy,’ he said and then when I saw that he is also a Filipino, we spoke to each other, ‘Oh, ah, ‘ I said, ‘How are you?’, he said, ‘Oi, are you Filipino?’ and I said, ‘I am Filipino’ ... he’s happy... he’s also studying here. (Meron pong Pilipino na pumunta na lalaki tapos ano yung teacher ko sabi niya, ‘Go talk to this boy,’ sabi niya tapos nung nakita ko siya Pilipino siya, tapos nag-usap kami, ‘Oh ah,’ sabi ko lang po, ‘Kamusta ka na’ sabi ko, sabi niya, ‘Uy Pilipino ka ba?’ sabi niya tapos sabi ko po, ‘Pilipino ako’ sabi ko po, masaya po siya... nag-aaral rin po siya rito.)
Participant 9 spoke to a fellow Filipino in Tagalog which caused a classmate to inform the teacher. The classmate who did not understand Tagalog was annoyed.
Participant 9 said that teacher ignored the complaint but his classmate felt bad.
Participant 9: Ah, we were just talking to each other... with another Filipino... There is one classmate who did not understand what we were talking about; then this classmate... a Black guy... we were just talking in our language, then, ‘Hey, look on,’... he called the teacher’s attention because we were speaking in Tagalog... He said, ‘Ms H,’ it’s like he said to the teacher, ‘Look at the two, they are speaking in their language.’ (Ah nagkukwentuhan lang po kami... Pilipino rin po... Kasi po hindi po alam yung inaano [pinag-uusapan]; tapos po nung ano po yung kaklase ko... yung ano Negro... nag-uusap lang po kami ng language po namin, tapos ho, ‘Hey, look, look on’... nagsumbong po nga po sa teacher kasi po nag-aano po kami ng Tagalog... Yung, ‘Ms H,’ yung para pong ano, sabi po sa teacher, ‘Oh tingnan niyo yung dalawa, nagsasalita ng language nila.’)
Even though speaking one’s native language was not prohibited in school, this excluded non-speakers of the language. Informing the teacher of such was a response by
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the peer who felt excluded, however, it was ignored. On the other hand, there were cases when a number of participants sometimes could not understand their classmates who spoke in English. Responses to this situation included not playing with these classmates or ignoring the instance, as in the case of Participant 6.
Participant 6: Yes, most of them are whites; sometimes I don’t understand them… I just shrug it off [shrugs]… It’s like I understand it but I don’t know the meaning, but I understand… I just say I don’t know the answer to that. (Opo, puro puti, minsan hindi ko naiintindihan… Ginaganyan ko lang [shrugs]… Parang naintindihan ko lang pero hindi ko ano alam yung meaning nun, pero naintindihan ko… Hindi ko alam yung answer.)
Participant 12: Sometimes I don’t understand what they say; but usually yes... It is a bit tricky to say it; it’s a really hard word... [On playing with peers] Not much, I don’t. I only play with R.
Some participants (3, C, J, 10, 13) revealed that friends helped with their communication skills when they first joined their school.
Participant C: I felt different because they need to speak English not Tagalog, it’s a bit hard... I just practised with my friends, and they taught me how to speak like more English, words.
In play situations, children taught children communication skills, both verbal and nonverbal. For participants, the ability to communicate in the English language was important to hold conversations with friends. Although there were instances when a language seemed privy only to a group of friends, the excluded children coped by ignoring the situation. Some, however, responded by allowing friends to help them with their communication.
Friends spent time together both in and outside of school. Apart from playing, the children visited each other’s houses, went to movies, and shopping.
Participant A: All my friends are Vietnamese. Like we’re gonna visit each other’s houses next week... Sometimes, like L [female], my best friend, we hang out at the cinemas.
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Participant B: I’ve got around like really close friends, 3... there’s [sic] Australian, English, and Chinese... We usually sometimes watch movies and go to each other’s houses, go to the pool.
Participant J: Some of my friends come over to my house, or I would just hang out with my friends… We go shopping, and mostly like walk around the town.
Participant M: We go to each other’s house, hanging out and have sleepovers... We have midnight feasts. We slept at twelve. Whatever we had for dinner we eat it again… One of my friends H, she went to my house before for sleepover and we put makeup on each other.
Play for children did not cease when they went home from school. Play-related activities with peers also occurred in the homes of the children and at various places like the cinema and sports and entertainment centres. During holidays, some participants had sleepovers at friends’ houses. However, some participants did not go for sleepovers because they were forbidden by parents.
Participant A: No, not allowed. I’m not sure if we’re not allowed but I’m just shy to get parents to have just a sleepover.
Participant G: I don’t know, I just don’t go to sleepovers for some reason... I don’t really like it coz sometimes I’m scared… we normally have that opportunity when [a classmate] asks if I could sleep over to their house, [but] they sleepover in our house instead... Yeah, we have like 3 or 2 people.
Although most peer activities were basically child-moderated, there were some activities, like sleepovers, where parents exerted authority. Some children accepted this and would let their friends know.
Most participants played with peers once they got home from school each day.
Children saw their friends through video chat or Face Time. Through the internet, children played with friends and communicated with them. Participants’ socialisation through media will be discussed further in the next chapter.
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Play mediated the bond of friendship among children. Playing with peers in school and outside of school were socialising opportunities for children. When children played, they took on selves and identities that allowed them to discover similarities and differences with others. They cooperated in activities and helped others with difficult tasks. Although there were situations where children created a ‘secret handshake’ or spoke in a language known only to close friends, any attempt to exclude others, intentionally or unintentionally, was reported to the teacher. Participants who experienced communication problems with peers responded by ignoring or walking away.
Peer interaction in school was an important motivation for school attendance.
Friends were a source of enjoyment, help, care, and support in academic work and social interaction. Peers helped children make sense of going to school and cope with school life.
6.4. Conclusion
This chapter described the socialisation experiences of children of Filipino immigrants in school. The children’s perspectives on school and school activities, academic work, relationships with teachers and peers revealed learning experiences that enabled them to make sense of schooling, adapt to school, and respond to challenges they faced.
Children learnt about academic work and routines through their schooling experiences in the Philippines which they brought with them to South Australian primary schools. Most children formed preferences for subjects which they found easy. This, however, did not mean that they out-performed classmates from other cultures, even though there were a few participants who claimed they were either the smartest or second smartest in class. Some participants struggled in some subject areas and sought help from parents, siblings, teachers, classmates, and the internet. Children’s perspective on other
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school work and related activities revealed curricular and non-curricular activities that they enjoyed and learnt to manage.
Children conformed to school rules, social norms and values that fostered cooperation and participation through routines. Through these interactional experiences children learnt acceptable behaviour. For children, following school rules was preferable.
Filipino children were socialised to the Filipino norm called hiya, translated in English as shame or losing face (Chapter 2). This showed the degree of children’s conformity to school regulations which not only involved relationships but feelings as well.
Australian values in school were not entirely new to the Filipino immigrant children.
Australian school values such as inclusion, care and compassion were instrumental values that supported the Philippine’s own school core values of faith in God, compassion, love of country, tolerance, and harmony.
Children’s interaction with teachers revealed how they responded to their teachers’ dispositions, pedagogical approaches, and disciplinary practices. They were encouraged by positive teacher dispositions that created positive learning environments. In terms of disciplinary practices, children recognised teachers’ responses to misbehaviour and they appreciated teachers’ positive reinforcements. Children took the attitude of teachers and learnt from misbehaving students.
Children’s exposure to multiculture in school clarified their relational value of harmony or in Filipino parlance, pakikipagkapwa. Participants made friends with children from different cultural backgrounds. Play and other peer activities mediated their interactions. The school was a source of friends. Children had clear ideas on what a friend was. They differentiated ‘friends’ (synonymous with peers) and ‘close friends’ (with whom they spent time outside of school). Playing with their friends in school was an important factor in school attendance. Friends were a source of enjoyment, help, and support both
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for academic work and social interaction. Peers helped the children to make sense of going to school and to cope with school life.
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Chapter 7 Perspectives on media socialisation
7.1. Introduction
This chapter examines the perspectives of children of Filipino immigrants regarding the media and the particular form of socialisation experiences media offered. It was noted in Chapter 1 that a child’s world today is increasingly structured around media technology, particularly electronic media such as television and the internet. In the context of this study, experience with media refers to a process of learning that involved both the content and the use of the following media platforms—television, the internet, and gaming technology. Through the interaction with these media technologies, participants demonstrated that learning is not merely a passive response but an active engagement.
Children learnt and were not allowed to learn from the media.
This chapter is organised into three sections according to children’s engagement with the media, in particular, television, the internet, and video gaming. Children used these forms of media in the Philippines and Australia. Hence, primary socialisation by media activities had begun prior to the children’s migration to South Australia. This initial exposure informed children’s media socialisation experiences in Australia.
The interactionist concepts of selves and influence of others, forming perspectives, roles, attitudes of others, and coping were used to explain how children made sense of their experiences with media content and its usage. These concepts also provided an understanding of how they learnt from media, the rules of the game concerning media, and how they fitted their responses to media’s pervasive role.
Children’s experiences with media included interaction with television, computer activities, and video gaming. Table 7.1 shows the variety of media technology used by participants. Availability of and access to media technology suggested a relationship between media and socialisation of children.
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Table 7.1 Ownership of media-related technology
Media devices/attributes Participants Total %
Television (with DVD players) All participants 24 100
Radio All participants 24 100
Internet connection All participants 24 100
The Filipino Channel (TFC A, B, E, F (5), G, H (8), I, K (L), M, N (O, P) 16 67 on cable network) 2, 3, 4, 6 (7), 10, 14
Family computer, laptop (shared) All participants 24 100
Owned a personal computer 9, 11, M, 13 4 13
Owned a Facebook account 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 11, 14, 17 57 B, C, D, G, I, J, L, M
Used parents’ Facebook account A, N, O, P, 9 5 17
No Facebook account; not interested E, F, H, K, 8,10, 12, 13 8 27
Gaming consoles (Xbox, Wii, A, B, E, F(5), G, H (8), J, N (O, P) 16 67 Playstation, PSP, DS) 1, 2, 3, 4, 6 (7), 10, 12,14
Other media devices owned or 2, C, 4, F (5), 6 (7), I, M 7 29 shared with siblings (iPad, iPod, mobile, Tablet) Note: Sibling participants that shared a TFC subscription, gaming console units, and other devices were counted as 1 out of 24 (families). The rest were counted as individuals (n=30).
Media-related items owned by children or their families included, television sets with DVD players, radios, cable and internet connections, computers, mobile devices
(including phones, tablets or iPads), and gaming consoles. Media technology were available to children fostered a Westernised identity as characterised in the network society. Media-related technologies provided opportunities for media experiences and related socialisation activities, in which children developed perspectives on language, consumerism, career preferences, and relationships with family, peers, and virtual others.
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7.2. Perspectives on television viewing
The most common media activity of children was television viewing. It was mentioned in Chapter 3 that children in Australia watched television for around two hours each day. Television viewing involved watching news, films, music videos, and other programs through standard network channels and cable networks. All participants and their families owned at least one television set and DVD player. The television provided children and their families with both entertainment and information.
7.2.1. Learning about the Philippines through Filipino programs
Media socialisation experiences of children were informed by prior engagement with the media in the Philippines. The media companies in the Philippines were largely owned by private corporations. Most media content was highly westernised. Many households in the Philippines had access to networks through cable satellite. Participants’ families subscribed to cable television in the Philippines. Shows from the HBO channel,
Cartoon Network, Disney Channel, and Nickelodeon were familiar to children. Children had developed Americanised identities in terms of television viewing.
In Australia, television viewing was a regular activity for Filipino children.
Television viewing allowed family members to spend time together and to keep abreast of contemporary developments in the Philippines. Television viewing formed part of children’s cultural repertoires from which they learnt about Filipino celebrities, the environment, and the Filipino language.
Table 7.1 showed that most participants (67%) had cable television and were subscribers to The Filipino Channel or TFC (ABS-CBN Global 2007) that televised Filipino movies and television shows 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Children without TFC in their homes (33%) still accessed Filipino movies from DVDs, the internet, or by visiting
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Filipino friends who had TFC. Accessibility to TFC was an important indicator of children’s connection with the Philippines.
Participant I disclosed that TFC was on from morning till night time in their house.
Participant K enjoyed watching Filipino shows from TFC.
Participant K: I like watching TFC. It’s a channel for Filipino people only. It has news, shows, sports show. Ahm, the shows are like movies. (Gusto ko po nanuod TFC. Channel po sa Filipino people lang. May news, may show, may sports show. Ahm, yung shows na po yung parang ano, yung movies po.)
Participant I: [on TFC] Yeah, until night time… Pinoy Big Brother… Erich Gonzales.
Participants who had TFC in their homes named famous television personalities from the Philippines and controversies surrounding them. They learnt Filipino humour from comedians such as Vice Ganda who hosted a famous noontime variety show. They learnt about Filipino melodrama and narratives that featured fantasy and neorealism. Some
Filipino celebrities also endorsed fashion brands and products. Children received these advertising messages from television and its celebrities.
Participant A: My mum and dad are really nice and they always play with me and my dad tells me lots of jokes and watch TFC… It's like I don't really know how to explain it. It's like a TV but it's the square thing… My [Binondo] Girl like those movies with, series… I think it's Philippines, because they have Filipino actors… Sarah Geronimo, Kim Chiu, John Lloyd Cruz.
Participant D: Showtime… Vice Ganda… coz they’re funny and they always make jokes.
Participant F: My favourite show is Kris TV, Walang hanggan, Angelito… Some are drama and some are hosting and some are news.
Participants learnt Filipino contemporary culture through media celebrities.
Children’s interaction with these celebrities was one-sided (para-social) and socialisation was vicarious. However, these media personalities served as a reference group for
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children in organising their Filipino selves and their links with the Philippines. Children saw issues affecting Filipinos through the news and some themes in soap operas that portray lives of Filipinos. These provided references for children to evaluate their lives in Australia.
Children who watched Filipino news learnt about the country’s natural environment and that the country was devastated by typhoons and floods. Given the frequency of natural disasters, children felt safe in Australia.
Participant F: There’s lots of floods [in the Philippines]… coz we have TFC [how she knew about the flooding].
Participant 6: [On news about the Philippines and flooding] It’s all on TV. (Ganyan sa TV lang po.)
Participants who watched TFC, Filipino news, and DVDs were socialised to the
Filipino/Tagalog language. A number, such as Participants G and H, understood Filipino movies even when they could not fluently speak Tagalog. Just like Participant H, children were able to give a summary of the movie they watched.
Participant G: [on Filipino films] Yeah it’s good, like we all understand it [Filipino film] and we know what’s going on.
Participant H: We watch TV only Fridays, each Friday; it’s movie night so we watch a movie each Friday, we sometimes watch 2, sometimes we watch Filipino movies. We watch Pak!Pak! My Dr Kwak! [in Tagalog]… I understand it... It was really funny.
Participant I: Wako Wako [television show]… There was a fountain and if you want to make a wish, you have to bring something that is really important to you and you have to make a wish and drop the important thing down the fountain and there’s someone living down that fountain that makes your wish [sic] true.
Children’s understanding of the Filipino/Tagalog language was maintained through
TFC. With TFC in the homes of two-thirds of children and through Filipino programs, they had an awareness of lifestyle in the Philippines including the illusory world of show
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business, the physical and social environment, and the Filipino/Tagalog language. Some programs that children watched on TFC had generic plots that presented close analogies to real life in the Philippines. Children learnt about real-life situations from television. Other shows that children watched were fictional. Children learnt about the world of make-believe which enhanced their imagination. Children were both entertained and informed by TFC regarding the Philippines. Children appropriated their core Filipino selves through language in Filipino programs on television. The media content and its accompanying celebrities in the Philippines provided children with reference groups for their present lives in Australia.
7.2.2. Learning from English-language television programs
Television and films exposed children to languages other than their mother tongue.
As reported in the previous section, children learnt Filipino/Tagalog language by watching television programs on TFC, and children learnt to speak English by watching English- language programs as illustrated by Participant M. Children learnt to pronounce words with an Australian accent. A few children like Participant B, who watched a lot of anime
(Japanese cartoon fiction), learnt Japanese phrases and words featured in these English- dubbed or English-subtitled shows.
Participant B: I like to watch anime… It’s kinda like cartoon and it’s really interesting coz the topics vary, depending on the anime… There’s series, like fairy tale, there’s lots of topics about them… There’s Bleach… There’s Naruto, there’s Yu Yu Hakusho, there’s KODOCHA [Kodomo no Omocha], it’s got strange names… and from watching [on TV] anime, I learned Japanese.
Participant M: And, when I came here all I knew was like ‘How are you?’ and just simple words; but by watching TV and all that, learning English in Australia, doing English... Yeah, I did. I came here in Australia when I was six years old. I watched really kiddie shows… Hi-5, learning type of thing… I did watch Disney, a lot [of] Hannah Montana.
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Participant 6: Even when I don’t understand some English words, I think about it, I sometimes encounter in the dictionary, I read about it, [I hear about it on TV]. (Kahit na may hindi ako naintindihan na English, iniisip ko, ano ba yan, iniisip ko kasi may nakikita ako sa dictionary, nababasa ko, [napapanood sa TV].)
For children, watching English-language shows helped them learn more English.
They learnt words, expressions, and pronunciations that helped them communicate more fluently in English. From watching television programs, children were able to see themselves from the viewpoint of generalised others who spoke English.
Children were entertained by English-language programs, for example shows on
ABC3 like Stoked and Big Babies. Together with their parents and siblings, children enjoyed shows like Modern Family and Master Chef. They watched Hollywood movies on
DVD and Japanese anime like Naruto, Pokémon, and Bakugan. Children watched
American, Australian, and Filipino television programs and movies. Preference for such shows indicated that they were attuned to both their Westernised and Asian selves.
Participant 3: [Shows he watched] Stoked, Big Babies, Dex Hamilton, Superhero Squad… ABC3.
Participant G: We [family] just watch movies together, like we watch movies from [sic] Johnny Depp… Johnny Depp movies, Pirates of the Caribbean… and sometimes Terminator, something like that… Hollywood movies.
Television and movie preferences were fostered by parents and significant others, but most children developed their own.
Participant 1: Watching TV... Modern Family... My mum likes watching it, and my dad.
Participant H: Angelina Ballerina… Yeah my brother doesn’t like watching it but I watch it, even though and he still watches it, and then it’s his turn and he does Elijah and Julius, it’s an like action one… Yeah it’s like solving mystery crimes, I still watch it even though… It’s his turn, we have turns… Yeah to be fair.
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Children knew what entertained their parents and siblings. This did not necessarily translate into actually liking the others’ tastes in television programs. Children accommodated the tastes of their significant others when it came to television programs.
Through watching television with their families, children developed negotiation skills as they adjusted their preferences to the choices of others. This is what Mead (1934), Blumer
(1969), and Prus (2010) called fitting one’s lines of action.
7.2.3. Learning consumerism through television
Children viewed television as a commodity in their daily lives. Most of the television programs they watched were laden with advertisements. These advertisements featured merchandise such as toys and food. Participant 4 was alerted to his favourite toy via television. This toy had an anime storyline and was in a television series.
Participant 4: Toys, Bakugan… It is like a ball, and there is a game… I saw it on TV, internet, and at school… We play it with cards… we roll the Bakugan and it will stand. (Toys po, Bakugan… Para pong bola po yun, tapos game yun po eh… Sa TV po at sa ano po, internet, and sa school… Nilalaro na para may card po... yung Bakugan iro-roll po yun tapos sa-stand.)
Children were socialised to be consumers of products advertised on television.
These ranged from toys, clothes, accessories, gadgets, games, and other products.
Children’s consuming selves were formed through a complex interplay of taking the perspective of others. Family members socialised children into a shopping culture. Children also assumed the perspectives of peers with whom they played games and the products that came with these games. In addition, they also took the perspectives of virtual others in advertisements. Through television, the children learnt to borrow ideas, styles, and strategies from the promoters of products (Hage & Powers 1992; Mead 1934). A consumerist self was formed and fostered via television viewing.
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Educational programs like Hi-5, Disney, and Playschool promoted their merchandise to children. Participants who watched these not only learnt to speak English from them and consume their merchandise, but they also listened to the music that accompanied these programs. They formed preferences for certain music and entertainers through television.
Participant 2: My favourite singer is… used to be Guy Sebastian, it’s Bruno Mars now… coz I like Bruno Mars better, and he’s like my type and I like what kind of songs he makes… Like Runaway Baby, the Lazy Song.
Participant O: I like to sing… [favourite singer] Reece Mastin [English-born South Australian and winner of X-Factor Australia 2011].
Children developed peer culture through shared tastes for music and its artists.
Some appropriated their identities to certain artists. Children developed para-social relations with media personalities who could be referred to as virtual others. Children knew the celebrities but the interaction was one-sided. Nevertheless, celebrities were seen as reference groups for children’s peer culture.
7.2.4. Learning history and general information
Documentaries and movies provided historical information. Participant P watched
ABC3 and its depiction of historical events in Horrible Histories. Participant 10 illustrated how he learnt about aspects of Australian life in the movie, Australia.
Participant P: I like Horrible Histories from ABC3, and on Saturdays, there’s this show called Saturday Disney and I like watching it coz some of the movies, the shows are really funny.
Participant 10: Sometimes my father would play DVD… you know the movie Australia? When my father played the movie Australia, we all watched it and saw the life in Australia and how it came to be multicultural. (Minsan po ano, si tatay ko magpe-play siyang, alam niyo po yung movie na Australia? Yung movie po na Australia, ni-play ni papa ko, tsaka ni-watch namin, tapos tini-tell niya doon kung paanong buhay ng Australia tsaka kung paano siya naging multicultural.)
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Despite the mythologised nature of the film (Luhrmann 2008), key historical periods, such as World War II were represented and these gave glimpses of Australian life at critical times. Historical events portrayed on television served to arouse children’s interest in history. Children saw how generalised others lived and from this made sense of how they were linked to society (Mead 1934).
7.2.5. Learning about careers through television
Television socialised children to certain future roles and occupations as illustrated by participants who saw future career prospects suggested on television.
Researcher: What do you want to become in the future?
Participant K: To be famous… on TV like a singer or dancer. (Maging famous, nasa TV tapos singer and dancer.)
Participant L: Army…because of the guns… I saw them on the television. (Army… Yung barili po… Sa television po.)
Participant O: To be a singer and to meet celebrities.
Children’s future aspirations in life were influenced by television. Children saw television celebrities as role models for future careers. Participant N wanted to be famous like the celebrities on My Kitchen Rules. Her life was shaped by the media. In Chapter 5,
Participant N mentioned that she had baked and sold cakes to nurture an interest in culinary arts.
Participant N: I like cooking and watching My Kitchen Rules, Junior Master Chef, Master Chef, and lots of ABC 3… I wanna go to the University and practice culinary arts… I want to be Manu Feildel’s and Peter Evans’ apprentice chef… I want to own a restaurant. I want to become famous.
Children’s ability to imagine future situations were informed and influenced by television. Media portrayed glamorous people with their social values, behaviours, and
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attitudes. Many television shows represented roles that participants found attractive.
Children responded to these influences by developing preferences for some careers over others. These had socialising influences on future career aspirations. Through role-taking, they assumed the perspectives and roles of celebrities. Even if the identification with media celebrities was wishful (Hoffner, et al. 2008), through anticipatory socialisation by the media, children were provided with options for future careers.
7.2.6. Parental regulation of television
Parents monitored what children watched. Most children watched ABC3 and children’s cartoon shows on other networks, usually unsupervised. However, with television shows and movies that needed parental guidance, children watched with their parents as illustrated by Participant M. Movies with fighting scenes were allowed only when her parents were present. Some mature content was not permitted.
Participant P: I like Horrible Histories from ABC3, and on Saturdays, there’s this show called Saturday Disney and I like watching it coz some of the movies, the shows are really funny… because Hannah Montana isn’t on anymore coz she doesn’t want to be [sic] anymore. There’s Psyche it Up which is a new channel, Jonas brothers LA, there’s Phinneas and Ferb, Wizards of Waverly Place.
Participant M: We usually watch movies here in the lounge room; like we got a TV so we watch movies here like action, sometimes comedy and all that… [If she is allowed to watch M- classified movies] It depends if it has stuff I can’t see. But fighting is ok. But if it’s a lot, I won’t watch it.
While parents allowed shows and movies with mild degrees of violence and mild adult and supernatural content, children accepted parental regulation of television and movie viewing. They adjusted their responses regarding restricted media content. They watched shows from children’s channels and cartoons on other networks. They watched movies under parental guidance. Children refrained from watching adult material on
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television. They were also aware of the make-believe nature of many shows and films they watched.
Children were told by parents to complete homework before television. This was an enforced rule. Children complied with this as illustrated by the following responses.
They did not have any choice and they were aware of the consequences of defiance.
Participant 2: After writing my homework, I would slouch on the lounge and watch TV, until Mum says, ‘Go to sleep.’
Participant 5: Oh, after doing whatever, if you have homework or not, you just have to recite it [to parents]; and then homework before TV.
Participant G: I’ve tried that [doing homework while watching television] but I end up watching TV, yeah I end up watching TV than doing my homework which is bad... Yeah we have a rule that if you want to watch TV you have to have your homework done first.
Parents controlled television viewing to socialise children to the value of school work before leisure. Participants G and 3 indicated the dangers of being distracted by television viewing while doing school work.
Participant 3: Yes, I have to study here [refers to the lounge]… The TV must be turned off, I need to concentrate, that’s it, and there should be no distraction. (Uh, dito kailangan ako mag-aral [refers to the lounge]… No, kailangan pataying ko ang TV, kailangan concentrate, yun po, walang distraction.)
Older children did not have to be told by parents to do their homework before watching television.
Participant J: After school, I do my homework, eat, and watch TV… I watch ABC 3, yeah and watch some other shows.
Participant M: I don’t really have to do my homework straight after my school. I can do it whenever I want to. But I like to do it straight after school. I have 15 minutes of rest. I do my homework straightaway so I don’t have to do it late at night because that is going to be really tiring. So I have heaps of
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hours after I do my homework so that I can watch TV after that.
Children developed the habit of doing their homework before watching television.
They were aware of the repercussions of watching television while doing their homework.
Children learnt to adjust their television-viewing behaviours to accomplish school-related work.
Children’s television viewing on school days was regulated to foster proper functioning at school. This formed children’s repertoire of routines mentioned in Chapters
5 and 6. A few participants watched television before going to school. Children were socialised to school morning rituals that parents enforced to structure their school day.
Children strategically complied with these routines. By doing so, they coped with the daily demands of school.
Participant 3: After waking up I still feel tired… I go straight to the lounge, watch TV, then I wake up Mum to prepare my breakfast, then I get ready for school. (Pagka-gising ko medyo tired pa rin ako… kaagad diretso na ako dito [lounge], manonood [TV] tapos gigisingin ko na si Mama ko, papa-ready ko na yung pagkain, tapos ako magri-ready na ako for schooling.)
Participant G: We don’t really have time to watch TV unlike other people, and then we get our bag ready, and we make sure everything’s like in place and then we go to school.
Television and movie viewing for children was a source of entertainment and information. Through television, socialisation to appropriate media content structured children’s viewing habits. Some media content provided anticipatory socialisation for future careers. Children learnt about the Philippines, Australia, and the rest of the world through television. Some improved their language speaking skills or learnt to speak other languages, particularly in the English language, through television. Children formed preferences for products that were featured on television. In terms of viewing habits,
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children learnt to adjust their behaviour by complying with parental regulation and control which organised their school-day routines.
7.3. Perspectives on computers and the internet
Children found information and entertainment using the internet. Participants used the internet for four reasons: social networking, research, entertainment, and gaming. All of them (or their families) owned computers and devices like tablets and mobile phones
(29%) that had internet connectivity (100%). Gaming through the internet will be discussed in the next section.
Children were socialised into the online world through the use of a range of electronic devices and equipment. Children were born into a media-rich world that enabled them to carry out online activities. Children developed their digital selves and network identities through engagement with digital devices. The online world provided children with opportunities to develop relationships with family in the Philippines and with peers through social networking. Children’s schools socialised them to the online world by incorporating media technology in teaching and learning. Their experiences with the internet addressed issues they encountered and their responses to these.
7.3.1. Connecting with significant others
Social networking sites that children used were Facebook, Skype, Yahoo Chat, and YouTube. Through email, online chatting, and sharing videos, children interacted with family and friends. Fifty-seven per cent (57%) regularly used Facebook accounts, 17% were active users but used their parents’ accounts, while 27% did not own Facebook accounts. However, children who did not have Facebook viewed family videos and photos through parents’ accounts.
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Connecting with family in the Philippines was practically instantaneous via the internet. Social networking helped participants establish contacts with relatives in the
Philippines.
Participant A: Like 2 years ago, I visited Philippines, and then I cried still in the airport. And then my other grandma said, my real grandma in the Philippines said, we'll be there in the computer... Yahoo... Not every day, only when they’re in Facebook... I don’t have one, but my mum has one but I am allowed to use it.
Participant K: [On chatting with family in the Philippines] With cousins… in Facebook… Uncles and aunts… They share what is happening in the Philippines. (Mga cousins… sa Facebook… Mga tito at tita... Sila ang nagkukwento na ganito ang nagyayari sa Philippines.)
Participant O: We are the only ones in our family here [in Australia]… very sad because we don’t get to see them [relatives in the Philippines] much… [got in touch through] Facebook… I only use Mum’s… We to talk to them [relatives in the Philippines]… We use video and camera… [in Tagalog] sometimes.
Socialisation also took place through the internet, particularly social networking.
Participants learnt familial values such as social connectedness and respect for elders.
Some children spoke in Filipino/Tagalog while video chatting with family in the Philippines.
This allowed them to cope with separation from significant others in the Philippines. For a number of children, social networking connected them with close family members interstate.
Participant 5: Connecting with my dad when he goes travelling that’s for work [uses Skype with dad].
Social networking sites helped children strengthen family connections. Social connectivity was an important value that children learnt from social networking. It created children’s selves that were part of an extended family network, and which were embedded in Filipino culture. This developed their networked selves and Filipino selves which emphasised the importance of family.
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Children used social networking to accumulate friends on Facebook. Many of these were relatives from the Philippines. Others were from school. There were also friends from other countries.
Participant 2: Facebook... It’s awesome! You could chat with your friends if they’re online; and you could upload photos, you can play games… Yes, 134 [friends]… Some of my school friends here have Facebook, and [in Mantown], I was like one of the most popular, I have lots of friends and they’re on Facebook with me too… Most Filipinos and about 20-25, 25-30 Aussie… Wait, I have a Korean one, she’s at [M Primary School] too.
Participant 3: Participant 1 [a friend in Facebook]… and 200 others I think… I chat with friends, I ask about the homework, when it is due, and what do we need to wear next [day]. (Si Participant 1, pati yung... 200 something ata… Nagcha-chat sa friends ko, yung inaa-ask ko ano yung homework, kailan due, ano wi-wear namin sa next [day].)
Participant J: I’ve got 200-something [friends in Facebook]. I talk with my friends, like the one that doesn’t go to my school, like the one from Myanmar, and yeah and the ones from another school.
Participant 14: Ah yes… I have Facebook… more than a hundred [friends]… I put comments on their posts. (Ah opo, meron akong Facebook... a hundred and over [number of friends]… Kino-comments ko ung ano [posts].)
Facebook served a number of purposes when it came to interaction with peers.
Peers used Facebook to speak with friends in the English language. Children accessed information from peers on topics related to school, for example homework, dress code, or school activities. Children shared photos with their peers and posted comments on their activities on Facebook. They constructed shared meanings and fostered peer relations and culture.
Peers from school shared participants’ interest in Facebook, computers, the internet, and gaming. As with other relationships, a sharing and borrowing occurred when children interacted with peers and with popular media (Hage & Powers 1992). The media activities of children with their peers occurred in their homes, at school and in the virtual
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world. Children’s media activities with peers developed their networked selves, for example their Facebook profiles.
Peers socialised peers into aspects of Facebook use. However, some children were banned from using Facebook until the age of 13 or even 18. Participant 13 was not able to keep up with friends through Facebook. He learnt to use an alternative to
Facebook, Face time.
Participant 13: It is actually really annoying because most of my friends have Facebook and then I hear them share some fun stuff and they make fun out of other friend’s posts in Facebook. I have no idea of what they are talking about because that is actually one of the main reasons why I want Facebook because I want to keep in touch with my friends. Some of my friends have moved out of my school and they have Facebook. And, I don’t ever like keep up with them. It is always like work, work, work and then, my chill out time I always forget or things like that. But I have all the more stuffs like Face time, which is like free face chat on Mac in computers and emails.
While some children complied with parental control over Facebook activities, some demonstrated active responses to keep themselves updated with peers. Some used their parents’ accounts while others found alternate means to interact with their online peers.
Despite having an alternative to social networking like Face time, Participant 13 still missed certain activities, news, or information that were available only to Facebook users. For children, Facebook was a space for the development of peer culture. Those who did not have an account found it difficult to keep up with their group’s construction of shared interests.
Overall, children’s perspectives on their relationships with family and peers through social networking underscored socialisation experiences developed through social networking. Connecting with family and relatives— in the Philippines, in Australia, and elsewhere in the world— maintained the children’s Filipino identities. Peer relationships and culture were also fostered through social networking. Children shared activities and
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interests with online peers. Despite parental control on social networking, some managed to find alternatives to keeping up with peer online interaction. Children’s networked selves were developed and this facilitated their relationship in the network society.
7.3.2. Learning to research and access information
For most children the internet was used for research. They did research for projects and homework via the internet as illustrated by Participant 11. They also used other computer applications for school work.
Participant P: I like playing Doc’s Command maths games… You can play maths games there, adding, take away, subtraction, divisions… In the computer I was typing down a story. It is about; it’s actually a funny book.
Participant 11: [On the internet] I do some research sometimes for my homework.
Participant G: Homework mostly... Yeah researching... when we have homework we have to do homework, we can’t use the internet for more than 3 hours.
Using online search engines such as Google enabled children to access information not only for homework but also for their general interests.
Participant 2: My favourite singer is… used to be Guy Sebastian, it’s Bruno Mars now… coz I like Bruno Mars better, and he’s like my type and I like what kind of songs he makes… Like Runaway Baby, the Lazy Song... He was born in Hawaii, I googled.
Children linked their internet activities to television viewing. For many children, googling information about shows, programs, music, and celebrities was common.
Children’s homes were equipped with electronic devices such as smartphones, tablets, computers, and gaming consoles. They could access the internet while they watched
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television. For example, Participant 2 learnt the biography of his favourite singer by accessing the internet.
Accessing information and research skills were taught in schools. Most of the
South Australian primary schools which participants attended had resource centres equipped with computer technology and had their own websites.
Participants liked their school and liked going to school partly because of computer facilities. Participants D and 6 noted:
Participant D: We play on the computer… Sometimes we have an activity… At times we just play. (Nagpe-play sa computer… Sometimes po may activity po kaming gagawin… Tapos eh sometimes magpe-play lang kami.)
Participant 6: It is nice there [in school], there are computers, there’s free time. (Kasi maganda diyan, may mga computers, may mga free time.)
Children’s engagement with media in school was extensive. A variety of print, audio, video, and multimedia were used in classroom instruction. Children found learning in schools stimulating because of the use of technology. Children learnt media content related to their lessons as illustrated by Participants 1, 11, M, and 13. They accessed information independently through the use of technology in school. With the same technology at home, it was second nature for children to be proficient users of media technologies.
Participant 1: We had to do a project, your background... Then like Philippines was my background, then I had to [do] a PowerPoint about it... Our like festivals I think... it was like 2008, then I put news about the Philippines... flood or something... and poverty.
Participant 11: [On the internet] Yup, I do some research sometimes for my homework.
Participant M: Yeah, I am not big fan of story writing. But I like reports. Writing reports and persuasive writing, doing stuff in the computer like doing essay. It is fun looking stuff up in the internet, writing it down, and typing it up in your own words.
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Participant 13: Yeah, basically internet is our encyclopaedia now. We still use books. We go to library. You will find a book that we can read about the topic. But it is mostly the internet.
Children used computers for school research and presentations. They used the internet to produce interactive presentations. Via media technology, independent learning activities were encouraged. Children learnt word processing and research skills. For many, getting information from books was obsolete since accessing information from the internet was instantaneous.
Schools used media technology for a range of reasons. Teachers, for example, took the roll through a Smartboard ‘face off’, played CDs for relaxation, presented relevant clips from YouTube, and used computer simulation games.
Participant D: We play... we play in the computer... Sometimes we have an activity... Then sometimes we play math games. (Nagpe- play po kami... Nagpe-play sa computer... Sometimes po may activity po kaming gagawin... Tapos eh sometimes magpe-play lang kami... Maths games.)
Participant 5: Learning and reading history… at school we watch in YouTube, search in internet.
Participant E: We do writing and then get a recess, after recess we do maths and digital arts and also we do relaxation and then activity [Teacher plays slow CD music]… [In the computer]… I do cool maths games.
Children were taught mathematics through digital games and simulations. They learnt history from watching YouTube clips. They learnt to access information for homework, projects, and reports. All these media activities encouraged children’s digital and networked selves.
Children responded to their teachers’ efforts to incorporate media in teaching and to the opportunities given to them though engagement with digital technology. Media technology and its use made school attractive.
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7.3.3. Learning through online applications for entertainment
Children entertained themselves through internet applications that allowed them to download music, watch music videos, view YouTube, and upload photos for friends and families. In addition, online gaming (to be discussed in the section on video games) also entertained children. All these entertainment activities developed children’s digital selves that encouraged them to use and operate digital devices.
Participant 7: I have an iPad, I play games and download music. (Meron rin po akong iPad… nag-games, nagda-download din ng music.)
Participant 2: [On Facebook] It’s awesome! You could chat with your friends if they’re online; and you could upload photos, you can play games… You know the band, LMFAO? They go like, ‘Sexy and I know’ it’s like this guy, he takes off his booties and then he has undies there, and like they’re spotted, and then I saw their live show on YouTube, it was like when he took them off, he had a smiley face instead of spots… I enjoy them [funny video clips].
The internet offered children an array of entertainment activities not available to previous generations. For example, Google, Facebook, and YouTube provided video clips, interesting reading materials, latest music, and online games. They learnt the skills of locating, downloading, and uploading entertaining materials, which characterised their digital selves.
7.3.4. Coping with parental and school regulation of internet use
Children were cognisant of social norms and values pertaining to the use of the internet. They learnt the rules of the game in terms of media usage from parents and teachers. From the parents, children learnt to comply with age restrictions on social networking. They also learnt to manage their computing and online activities on school days. Children were also aware of parental guidance regarding their internet activities.
They prioritised homework over entertainment as the following participants indicated.
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Participant D: If there is school the next day… we are not allowed to watch a movie, we can’t stay up late… we are forbidden to play too long with the computer. (Kasi may ano, may school kinabukasan… Bawal mag-watch ng movie, bawal magtagal sa gabi, tapos eh bawal mag-play ng computer ng ano, sobrang tagal.)
Participant G: In school days we are not allowed to stay up late, when we have homework we have to do homework, we can’t use the internet for more than 3 hours.
Participant L: We are not allowed to play on the computer everyday if we have homework… We ask permission [from parents] if we need the computer [for research]. (Bawal kami maglaro ng computer everyday pag may homework… Tinatanong sila [parents] kung pwede gamitin ang computer [for research].)
Parental regulation of media use helped children to accept their responsibilities.
Children learnt that excessive media usage had consequences. Children were socialised to acceptable use of the internet and computing. Children responded to parental regulation of computer and internet use by complying with rules set by their parents, seeking parental guidance, asking permission to extend their usage, and by exercising self-regulation.
In terms of Facebook use, many participants had Facebook accounts even though they realised that they were too young to join Facebook. Allegedly, their parents knew their accounts and passwords. A number of participants were not allowed to have Facebook accounts and accepted this.
Participant 8: [Quick response] Ah no, because we’re not allowed to play Facebook in the school and my mother and father said I should be 18 years old.
Participant H: Yes, I don’t have Facebook; my mum said when we’re like 18 and above... Yeah because we don’t really like doing Facebook.
Participant 13 was banned from using Facebook not only because of his age but also because of cybercrimes and computer hacking.
Participant 13: Facebook, my parents banned me from Facebook. Actually I never had Facebook at all because they have heard all
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these things that cybercrimes and hacking... Probably till the legal age 18 or maybe when they think that I am appropriate [sic] enough or whatever.
The rest (43%) could create a Facebook account when they turned 18 years of age. Most children used their parents’ Facebook accounts for gaming, chatting, uploading and downloading photos, music, and videos.
Children’s schools monitored internet use and children were aware of this. They followed the rules. They took the attitudes of others unto themselves (Mead 1934) to ensure internet safety and regulated media use.
Some schools allowed children to bring electronic devices from home but they were required to inform teachers that they had done so.
Participant 3: Yeah [we can bring iPad to school], but we have to write our name if you have it. (Oo, kasi meron yung kailangang isulat mo yung name mo kung nagdadala ka nung ganon.)
Children played computer and video games at school during recess and lunch time. Children had log-in names and passwords. These digital details served as the network identities of children. Having a network identity allowed them access to school computers and the internet.
Participant 10: [On school recess and lunch break] Sometimes I play with my classmate’s PSP [Portable Playstation], we play Naruto; and also Jetpack Joyride with my classmate’s iPad. (Minsan po ano nakikipaglaro ako sa kaklase ko ng ah yun pong PSP niya, naglalaro sa kanya ng Naruto; at tsaka yun po naman isa yung Jetpack Joyride sa iPad ng kaklase ko.)
Participant 9: [Computer use in school] We have a password and sign in name… sometimes I go to the library to play on the computer… zombie games… car games… but it’s only Y8… sometimes we cannot save games, we have to restart the game. (Opo may password po ako tapos po yung sign in name po… minsan po napunta po ako sa library para mag-computer… zombie games po… car games pero po Y8 po yun… minsan po hindi na po nase-save, naulit po ko.)
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Different forms of media use were regulated differently. While computers were made available to all students, children were trained to sign in and keep passwords private.
This assisted cyber-safety. In some schools, mobile devices were allowed but their use was regulated. Other schools did not allow mobile phones to be brought to school.
In school, through the internet and ICT equipment and devices, children were socialised to regulated media usage and internet safety as they accessed acceptable media content that promoted learning.
7.4. Perspectives on video and online gaming
A distinctive characteristic of children’s culture in the network society is the pervasive influence of video games. Children played video games at home and online with peers. Conversation about gaming was an important connecting point for children. Their social lives revolved around games. When they were in school, video games were discussed. In some schools, children played educational video games while in class or other video games in the library.
Children’s video-gaming selves and online-gaming identities developed through taking the role of the others. These were either the children’s co-players or the characters in the games. The characters in video and online games may be referred to as virtual others. For example, Participant 2 identified himself as the ‘best black ops’ in a video game where his character won a challenge. Some video games had role-playing modes that allowed players to take on characters in fictional settings or create their own characters.
Participant 2: Cartoon games, mostly war games, I got some cartoon games… War games... coz they’re violent and I like guns… and I use probably 3 guns or 5… In the real world, there’s [sic] 3. Real guns are actually in the game, like a commando, AK 47… RPG, a javelin, a P90, an intervention, a grenade launcher… Call of Duty… and like Tom
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Clancy’s… I’m the best black ops at my church… Yeah, and I all challenged them and I won.
Although concerns were raised about the violence in video games (Chapter 3), games enhanced the competitive spirit of the participants as illustrated by Participants 11 and 12. Many children not only entertained themselves with video games but also learnt attitudes, skills, and behaviours as the following participants recounted. Participant 11 talked about learning military strategy in playing video games.
Participant 11: My favourite game in the computer is Halo and Warcraft 3 coz they’re good… on the computer… they are strategic games… you have to decide to be a hero and choose your weapons, there is an armory. There is a lot, a lot. (Paborito kong nilalaro sa computer ang Halo pati Warcraft 3 kasi po maganda… Sa computer po… strategic game po, mag-decide ka pong hero pati yung mga weapons niya, armory, marami po, marami.)
Children played video games by themselves or with their parents and siblings.
Participant 12 who played virtual basketball with his dad learnt sportsmanship and encouraged his dad when he won the game.
Participant 12: You like put your hands up; it’s in PlayStation. You just lie on the floor, do you want to know what happens when I lose? I fall in a trap… I feel ok because I want to be a good sport and have a good attitude. I always say ‘Good try’ to my dad… I am more sporty than my dad… because I play basketball every day at school; but my dad, I don’t know what he plays but I usually see him play tennis in the PS3; it’s virtual tennis. And on the PS3 as well, it is called, it is like basketball, it’s big cake something, and then, you try to shoot a goal… you have to do Michael Jackson’s [sic], super dunk, his special dunk; and, I have even have it on my shoes… Michael Jordan.
Video- and online-gaming also facilitated family interaction. Through playing computer or video games, children learnt to be considerate of significant others. There were instances when disagreements occurred over computer use and video-gaming. For example, Participant L learnt to adjust her behaviour when her little sister (Participant K)
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also wanted the computer for gaming. Even when fighting ensued, Participant L had to
‘give way’ to the younger sibling. In Chapter 5, it was mentioned that children’s actions and reactions toward siblings were not always harmonious. Understanding the importance of sibling relationship and keeping harmony could see older siblings acquiesce.
Participant L: We fight over the computer… but I have to give way to my little sister… I feel guilty because I also want to play [but have to give way]… I tell Mum [if it’s my turn and she does not give me a chance to use the computer]. (Nandyan po nag-aaway kami… ng computer… Ano po pinagbibigyan yung malliit. Guilty, kasi gusto ko rin maglaro… Isusumbong na lang kay Mama.)
The internet and video gaming world offered children a variety of activities on and offline. When children were on social networking sites, they not only engaged in chatting, but also interacted heavily in gaming either alone or with peers. Gaming not only promoted peer culture and relationships but also gaming language which further enhanced children’s peer culture.
Participant 4: A lot of kids now use FB [Facebook]... Just playing games, and then chatting with friends… [on gaming] Restaurant Story… City Story… There are buildings… no people, but you can add people in the story but you have to pay for them with real money… I would rather buy [applications] in my iPhone not in my iPad. (Pero marami nang bata ngayon na nage-FB...Naglalaro lang po tapos nagcha-chat sa friends po... [on gaming] Restaurant Story, City Story… May para pong building… wala po tao, pero pwede na po niyo lagyan ng tao, pero bibilhin na po with real money… Bili na lang po ako, pero hindi po sa iPad, sa iPhone.)
For children, gaming had a sophisticated and dynamic character because of the internet and devices like gaming consoles. Children learnt to become consumers of gaming merchandise. Some games in which children engaged were offered free at the outset but as children progressed into the game, they were required to pay to move further.
Some like Participant 4 preferred to spend his real money on his iPhone than pay to advance a level in the game on his iPad. Participant 4 mentioned real money as opposed
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to virtual money. Children in gaming worlds knew the concept of virtual vis-à-vis real money. Even though consumerist messages were heavily promoted in the gaming world, children were not passive in the face of such enticements.
To summarise, children developed their gaming selves through a range of video and online games. They learnt the rules of the gaming world through exposure to video and online games in conjunction with sharing and borrowing knowledge and strategies from significant others including parents, siblings, and peers (Hage & Powers 1992), and the media through television programs that discussed video and online gaming. Children learnt values such as sportspersonship and consideration for others, and attitudes that required adjustment of behaviour in order to get along with others. Video games enhanced children’s peer culture through gaming language and activities. Finally, while children were entertained by video and online games, they were also bombarded with offers of merchandise, virtual or otherwise but they were not always duped by its promises.
7.5. Conclusion
Children exercised control of their networked lives despite the temptations of a media rich world. With digital media technology, children entertained themselves and accessed information. Children developed perspectives on their Filipino selves through watching Filipino programs and news, and social networking with regular virtual face-to- face interaction with family in the Philippines. Children learnt to maintain aspects of their
Filipino selves through language and familial values as they strengthened their ties with the
Philippines and its culture. Children nurtured their Westernised selves as they engaged with English-language media. Children developed selves whose preferences were not limited to only one culture.
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By taking the role of the media personalities, children developed perspectives on careers. Anticipatory socialisation to future careers was carried out by the media through the portrayals of roles, both real and illusory.
Children’s video and online gaming activities constituted a large part of their peer culture. Video games socialised children not only to a consumerist world of gaming merchandise but also to a culture that had its own gaming language and shared perspectives.
Aware of parental control and school regulation of media content and activities, children fitted their responses to regulation by being compliant lest their media devices were withheld due to misbehaviour, disobedience, or failure to accomplish tasks. Even when regulations structured children’s repertoire of practices, children exercised self- regulation by taking the perspectives and attitudes of parents and teachers.
Children watched television shows with siblings and parents, they used the internet for research, social networking, entertainment, and gaming. Children learnt to use media technologies at home, in school, with peers, and on their own. They developed perspectives on relationships with others, language, consumerism, the environment, career preferences, and regulation of media use. Regardless of how the school and the home regulated children’s use of media devices, their engagement with media— through gaming, social networking, television, and other related activities— their responses to the challenges associated with digital technology not only provided opportunities for learning and interaction but also equipped them for future roles in the network society.
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Chapter 8 Summary and conclusion
This study investigated the world of primary school children (aged 8–12) of Filipino immigrants in the wake of their settlement in South Australia. The research focussed on children’s socialisation experiences in the home, at school, with peers, and with the media.
This leads to substantive findings on children’s selves, their ability to take perspectives, attitudes, and roles, and their coping responses which provided knowledge of the world of primary school children of Filipino immigrants.
South Australia has been identified as one of the preferred destinations of Filipinos for work and permanent residence. It is an advanced economy, a networked and multicultural society. Children with their parents came to Australia ‘for a better life’ and ‘for a bright future’.
Children were at the centre of a family’s decision to migrate. Although they were rarely consulted in this decision, they nevertheless experienced the attendant challenges including difficulties in redefining their self-identities and relationships, and concerns about coping.
Immigrant children faced challenging experiences in the new environment of their host countries. These were both cultural and educational in nature. Cultural challenges were connected to how things were done in the new environment. They included language, personal relationships, traditions, rituals, routines, and rules. Educational challenges were related to academic demands, language difficulties, and school practices.
8.1. Theoretical and methodological underpinnings
The main interest of this study was the perspectives of children of Filipino immigrants regarding home and school experiences in South Australia. Symbolic interactionism informed the study as it saw the selves of children as socially constructed.
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Children’s selves were products of interaction with significant and generalised others, with reference groups, and their own selves (Hage & Powers 1992; Blumer 1969; Shibutani
1955; Mead 1934), as well as media and virtual others.
Children learnt from parents, siblings, other family members, teachers, peers, and media. They understood how their behaviour affected others and vice versa, and adjusted their actions to others’ behaviours. Children responded to the situations and the meanings they developed about these situations (Prus 2010; Blumer 1969; Mead 1934). The identifiable components of socialisation were primary, secondary, and anticipatory (Berger
& Luckmann 1966).
Symbolic interactionist theory views perspectives as ‘frameworks through which people make sense of the world’ (Woods 1983, p. 7). Recognised as subjects of their own world, children formed perspectives through socialisation in the family, at school, with peers, and through media. Home, school, peers, and media were specifically addressed in this study as contexts of socialisation for children of Filipino immigrants. Through children’s interaction in various contexts, they developed perspectives, strategies, selves, and identities as they acted towards situations, including those which adults mostly controlled
(Pollard 1990).
Symbolic interactionism emphasises the importance of self and identity in understanding how children cope with the social world (Pollard 1982). Children developed strategies that furthered their interests and enabled them to cope with school and life
(Woods 1983).
Symbolic interactionism as a theoretical framework complements qualitative methodology since both agree on the complex realities of human group life, and multiple ways of knowing. Symbolic interactionism and qualitative methodology do not see subjectivity as a hindrance to systematic inquiry. The researcher in this study recognised
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her positionality as both an insider and outsider connected to the children’s social worlds.
Qualitative methodology and symbolic interactionism suggested interviewing as a method to disclose children’s subjective perspectives on their experiences.
Qualitative data analysis followed three stages, namely organising, interpreting, and theorising. These stages were recursive. Propositions were developed by grounding the data in symbolic interaction concepts. Substantive and formal theories were derived from the findings (Glaser & Strauss 1967). Glaser and Strauss (1965) argued that the substantive theories ‘help formulate and reformulate formal theories’ (p. 11). The study followed the four criteria of Lincoln and Guba (1985) in addressing the validity and reliability of qualitative research— credibility, transferability, dependability, and confirmability (see Appendix C for details).
Since reality is created through interaction with others, no two individuals think alike. The ability of one individual to think, feel, and talk to himself or herself creates differences in the way each individual sees and interprets reality. For example citing a famous Filipino dish, adobo, the children explained differently the ways in which adobo was prepared in their homes. One child mentioned her mother’s secret ingredient, which was rather nonconventional for adobo. Same dish but different experiences and realities.
The experiences, realities, and interpretations of children of Filipino immigrants may have been different from or incompatible with how adults understand these experiences, realities, and interpretations, even when the children engaged in taking the others’ perspectives. They were capable of, if not experts at, defining their situations and their perspective on things. While their experiences were unique, some similarities were noted to provide connections to the interactionist theory, without going into overarching generalisations.
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8.2. Substantive propositions and theoretical implications
Conclusions on the experiences of these children of Filipino immigrants applied chiefly to the children in this study. However, some may be helpful in understanding the children of other Filipino immigrants. The findings give rise to substantive propositions
(Glaser & Strauss 1967), as presented in the subsequent sections of this chapter. Despite the micro nature of the study, formal theoretical implications have been derived from the principles of symbolic interactionism in regard to the concepts of selves and identities, roles, perspectives, socialisation, and coping (Woods 2012a; Powers 2004; Pollard & Filer
1999; Powers 1990; Mead 1934).
8.2.1. Making sense of migration and resettlement
For children, there was no major disconnection with the Philippines, their home country. They accepted the reasons why they migrated to Australia. They took the perspective of their parents that the move was for a better future. Most children, after experiencing life in Australia saw the benefits of staying permanently. Aware of the limited economic opportunities for their parents in the Philippines, not to mention environmental and health risks, children accepted that Australia offered economic benefits for their parents and family. Economic opportunities in Australia were reasons why children extended invitations to other family members in the Philippines to come to Australia. They maintained ties through family vacations and via the internet. These strengthened the connectedness with family members and their home country.
Proposition 1: The better informed the children of Filipino immigrants were about the reasons behind their migration and resettlement, the lesser the feelings of disconnection with the Philippines.
Corollary 1.1: The more concrete the information given about the economic opportunities available in the host country, the greater the acceptance of the reason for migration.
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The above of course emphasises Thomas’ and Thomas’ definition of the situation:
‘people respond to situations according to what they believe to be true about the situation’
(Powers 2004; Thomas & Thomas 1928).
Socialisation in the homes of children of Filipino immigrants involved interaction with children’s significant others particularly their parents and siblings. This highlighted the children’s hybridised Filipino cultures. Filipino culture was embedded in language, food, routines and responsibilities, rules and discipline, religion, and other family activities.
8.2.2. Home socialisation to familial values and Filipino culture
Socialisation in the home with significant others particularly the parents and siblings reflected the participants’ sense of selves and identities. Children’s Filipino selves and identities were maintained through interactions with family members in Australia and in the Philippines. Their self-identification as Filipinos was preserved symbolically through certain features of children’s cultures which were present in the home. These features comprised six areas of learning— relationships with significant others, language, socialisation around food, routines and responsibilities, religion, and family interaction that involved shopping, travel, and leisure.
First, children learnt familial values of care, concern, and compassion through their relationship with parents and siblings. Children constructed family-oriented and relational selves that reflected a collective Filipino culture. Children saw their parents as role models and recognised hard work as a pathway to a better life and future. Children demonstrated certain Filipino relational values and cultural practices through outward signs of respect
(using ‘po’ and ‘opo’, blessing, not addressing older people on first name basis, etc.), and modified the practice when addressing non-Filipinos.
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Proposition 2: The stronger the role performance of parents and significant others of children of Filipino immigrants regarding familial and relational values, the higher the likelihood of children embodying these same values.
Corollary 2.1: Recognition and acceptance by children of parental roles and perspectives strengthens respect for tradition in families.
Second, the language which parents of children spoke at home or in the company of fellow Filipinos, provided opportunities for children to maintain identities as Filipinos even though their language usage and competency were limited. Children coped with their limited competency in their parents’ native language by using English when speaking to parents and significant others, and by using Taglish.
Proposition 3: The more frequent the use of mother tongue or other languages in the home of children of Filipino immigrants, the greater the chances of maintaining these languages.
Corollary 3.1: The more frequent the English language is used by children, the higher the likelihood of children preferring this language.
Third, through Filipino food that children consumed in Australia, they learnt about their selves and identities as Asians and Filipinos. However, children formed preferences for Western cuisine even in the Philippines. Children were socialised into a more hybridised food culture which helped them adapt to foods available in Australia.
Proposition 4: The stronger the socialisation of significant others of children of Filipino immigrants to particular food cultures, the greater the likelihood of their offspring forming preferences for these foods.
Corollary 4.1: Recognition and acceptance by children of food cultures broadens their multicultural perspectives.
Fourth, children learnt living skills through the observance of routines, responsibilities, and rules. They learnt concern for significant others and cooperation in the
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family through the performance of daily routines. Children learnt responsibilities in the home which gained them independence in terms of looking after themselves and preparing them for the world of work.
Proposition 5: The more informed children of Filipino immigrants were on the purpose of routines and responsibilities, the greater the chances of conforming to repertoires of routines and responsibilities.
Corollary 5.1: The more convincing the role performance of routines and responsibilities by significant others for children, the greater the likelihood of these routines and responsibilities being copied and emulated.
Fifth, through religious activities, values, and rituals, such as praying as a family and attending church, children learnt commitment to religious belief. Children were inducted into the religion of their parents. This was accepted by children who took the perspectives of parents.
Proposition 6: The stronger the socialisation to a belief or religion and parental commitment to that belief or religion, the higher the chances of children following it.
Corollary 6.1: Children respond positively to religious activities that foster cooperation.
Finally, children adapted their behaviour, attitudes, and actions through interactions and experiences learnt on vacations, during travel, while shopping, and via leisure activities. For example, shopping socialised children to spending and saving money. Such experiences formed children’s situational selves that allowed them to respond to immediate and particular circumstances.
Proposition 7: The more opportunities and experiences children of Filipino immigrants have for travel and leisure activities, the higher the likelihood of behaving in socially desirable ways during these activities.
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Corollary 7.1: The stronger the socialisation to travel and leisure activities, the greater the chances of children engaging in these activities.
Corollary 7.2: The stronger the socialisation to acceptable behaviour during travel and during leisure activities, the lesser the chance of children misbehaving.
Ethnicity played an important role in children’s lives. Children were comfortable with their own selves and identities as Filipinos but at the same time, they adjusted to an
Australian environment of diverse cultures. Through socialisation to their heritage culture at home, children’s Filipino identities were maintained. Children’s cultures also structured their substantial selves which initially were resistant to change (Jeffrey 1999; Nias 1989).
However, children also demonstrated their situational selves by understanding migration to
Australia. They made sense of migration by coping with the challenges that accompanied settling in a new country.
Proposition 8: The stronger the home socialisation experiences of Filipino children to their ethnicity and heritage culture, the higher the chances of them being comfortable with their Filipino identity.
Corollary 8.1: The more comfortable children were about their identities as Filipinos, the easier for them to cope with their new environment.
The foregoing propositions give rise to the Principle of Socialisation which states that socialisation is likely to be most effective when those being socialised depend on and trust the socialising agent (Powers 2004; Mead 1934). The propositions also give rise to the Social Location Axiom which states that children ‘tend to think that what they have personally encountered or heard from people closest to them is authentic and representative and generally true of the way the world is’ (Powers 2004, p. 220). This is related to Mead’s principle of taking the perspectives of significant others unto one’s self.
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8.2.3. School socialisation experiences
Socialisation in school was the processes of learning through social interaction that enabled Filipino immigrant children to make sense of schooling. Children’s views about school and school activities, academic work, relationships with teachers and peers enabled them to adapt to schooling in South Australia.
Schooling led to self-understanding as well as the acquisition of basic skills
(Denzin 2010; Mead 1934). Children learnt about academic work and routines through their schooling experiences in the Philippines and brought this to South Australia. In the
Philippines, children acquired knowledge and skills in mathematics and English that helped them manage the same subjects in South Australia. Most children preferred these subjects. This however, did not mean that they out-performed classmates, even though a few claimed they were the smartest in class. Some participants who struggled in subjects like mathematics sought help from parents, siblings, teachers, classmates, and the internet. Children’s perspective on school work and related activities revealed curricular and non-curricular activities that they enjoyed and learnt to manage.
Children were not entirely ‘blank slates’ in terms of school culture in general and the Australian school culture in particular. Their ideas of Australian schooling were informed not only by direct exposure to it but also by what parents, siblings, and significant others communicated to them. Reinforced by prior experiences of schooling in their home country, children adapted to their new schools and coped with any academic difficulties.
Children conformed to school rules, social norms and values that fostered cooperation and participation through routines, starting from daily preparation for school, to classroom practices and other school rituals. Through these experiences, children demonstrated acceptable behaviour. For children, following school rules was more strategic. They did not count trouble. Children were socialised to the Filipino norm called
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hiya, translated in English as shame or losing face (Chapter 5). This showed children’s conformity to school regulations which involved relationships and feelings.
Australian school values of care and compassion, doing one’s best, fair go, freedom, honesty and trustworthiness, integrity, respect, responsibility, understanding, tolerance, and inclusion were instrumental values that supported the Philippine’s own school core values of spirituality and faith in God, compassion for others, love of country, care for the environment, peace, tolerance, and harmony. Thus, Australian values in school were not entirely new to the Filipino immigrant children. It was not difficult to adjust to these values.
Children’s relationship and interaction with teachers revealed responses to teachers’ dispositions, pedagogical approaches, and disciplinary practices. They were encouraged by positive dispositions of teachers. These created a constructive learning environment. They took the perspective of their teachers when confronted by not-so- encouraging demeanours of teachers and complied with teacher expectations. Children honoured pedagogical approaches that included clear instructions, encouragement, clarification, and respite from classroom tasks. In terms of disciplinary practices, children recognised teachers’ responses to inappropriate student behaviour and appreciated teachers’ positive reinforcement. Children took the attitude and responses of teachers and also learnt from the behaviour of students.
The foregoing school socialisation experiences of children give rise to the following propositions:
Proposition 9: The greater the prior schooling experiences of children of Filipino immigrants in the Philippines, the higher their chances of adapting to the Australian school curriculum.
Corollary 9.1: The more familiar a particular subject area to the children the greater the interest and motivation to perform well in that given subject.
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Corollary 9.2: The more skills the children acquire from particular subject areas the greater the likelihood of forming preferences for that particular subject.
Proposition 10: The more positive the responses of children of Filipino immigrants to teachers’ dispositions, pedagogical approaches, and disciplinary practices, the higher the motivation for school work and participation in it.
Corollary 10.1: Children respond positively to helpful teacher disposition, such as cheerfulness.
Corollary 10.2: Children perform better in academic work if pedagogical approaches are more inclusive and process-oriented.
Corollary 10.3: The greater the ability of children to assume the perspective of teachers dealing with misdemeanours, the more likely they behave and follow school rules.
Proposition 11: The stronger the socialisation of children of Filipino immigrants to the Filipino value hiya or ‘shame’, the greater the likelihood of complying with school routines and rules.
Corollary 11.1: Children respond positively to routines and rules when they understand the reasons for these.
These substantive propositions give rise to the Principle of Socialisation that socialisation is most effective when the child being socialised depends on and trusts the teacher (Powers 2004; Mead 1934). Likewise, following Mead’s principle of taking the perspectives of others, the Social Location Axiom arises from the propositions, where children think that what they have heard or encountered from teachers is authentic and generally true of the way the world is (Powers 2004).
8.2.4. Peer socialisation experiences
Children’s exposure to multiculturalism in school clarified their relational value of harmony or in Filipino parlance, pakikipagkapwa. Many participants made friends with
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children from different cultural backgrounds. Play and other peer activities mediated their interactions.
The school was a source of friends for children. Although no criteria for the definition of friendship was universal, children had clear ideas of what a friend was. For children, ‘friend’ was synonymous with ‘peers’. Their classmates or schoolmates were friends whether or not they played with them. As long as they knew them by name and got along well with them, they were considered ‘friends’. However, certain elements enabled participants to recognise ‘close friends’. These were the ones with whom they formed a bond, and with whom they spent time inside and outside school.
Playing with friends in school was an important motivating factor for school attendance. Friends were sources of enjoyment, help, and support both for academic work and social interaction. Friends created a relaxed atmosphere for children. Peers helped children make sense of going to school and coping with school life.
Proposition 12: With the presence of at least one close friend in school, the higher the commitment of children of Filipino immigrants in going to school.
Corollary 12.1: Children of immigrants who form friendships in school have greater chances of coping with school.
This proposition gives rise to the formal theory on the Principle of Socialisation, which states that socialisation is most effective when the child being socialised depends on and trusts their peers, and has opportunities to act out or practise new roles and rules with peers (Powers 2004; Mead 1934).
8.2.5. Socialisation experiences from media
Children’s media activities at home, in school, and with peers indicated that they had taken control of their digital lives through three most utilised media platforms—
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television, the internet, and video or online gaming. With media technology, children entertained themselves and accessed information. The availability of media-related technology at home and school indicated that children developed their networked selves.
Children watched television shows with siblings and parents. They used the internet for research, social networking, entertainment, and gaming. Children used media technologies at home, in school, with peers, and on their own. They developed perspectives on relationships with others, career preferences, language, consumerism, the environment, and regulation of media use.
Subsequent propositions throughout this section were derived from the findings on the children’s perspectives on their media experiences.
Children developed perspectives on their Filipino selves through watching Filipino programs, news, and social networking via virtual interaction with family in the Philippines, through various media. Children maintained aspects of their Filipino selves through language and familial values as they strengthened their ties with the Philippines and its culture. Children maintained their Asian and Westernised selves as they engaged with
English-language media. Children’s exposure to a variety of media content developed selves whose preferences were not limited to one culture.
Proposition 13: The greater the exposure children of Filipino immigrants to digital media, the higher the likelihood of them developing networked selves.
Corollary 13.1: Children who engage with media content that foster multicultural life have higher chances of developing multicultural perspectives.
Children developed and sustained relationships through social networking. This maintained ties with significant others in the Philippines and elsewhere and nurtured peer relationships. Children’s video and online gaming activities characterised their peer culture.
Video games socialised children not only to a consumerist world of gaming merchandise
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but also to a culture that had its own gaming language and shared perspectives. The children learnt rules of video and online gaming through exposure, sharing, and borrowing of gaming content and strategies from peers.
Proposition 14: The greater the time spent online with significant others located in the Philippines and overseas, the higher the connectedness of the children to their heritage culture.
Corollary 14.1: Children develop stronger Filipino identities through networking with family and friends in the Philippines.
Proposition 15: The greater the engagement of children and their peers with media technology, the more they construct and nurture peer cultures and relationships in the mainstream Australian world.
Corollary 15.1: Children promote peer culture through social networking and gaming technology.
The lives of the participants were saturated by media for they had continuous access to it. Children were informed and entertained by the media, which connected them with significant, generalised, and ‘virtual’ others. They linked information in the media to their everyday experiences.
Proposition 16: The greater the exposure of children to informative media content, the greater the likelihood of connecting this information with their daily experiences.
Corollary 16.1: The greater the exposure of children of immigrants to English-language media content, the higher the likelihood of becoming proficient in English.
Proposition 17: The greater the exposure of primary school children to persuasive media content, the greater the opportunities for successful socialisation.
Corollary 17.1: Children respond to vicarious socialisation to consumerism in the media.
Taking the role of media celebrities, children developed perspectives on careers.
Anticipatory socialisation to future careers was carried out by media through the portrayal
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of roles, real and illusory. Children appropriated their future identities to some of these roles. Some children undertook meaningful action towards such future roles, for example taking singing lessons to become singers and cooking lessons for careers in the culinary arts. However, whether or not children followed through these anticipated scenarios, which they visualised through media, remains to be seen.
Proposition 18: The longer the exposure of children to future or career roles in the media, the more likely they develop preferences and aspirations related to these roles.
Corollary 18.1: Children respond positively to vicarious socialisation by their favourite media celebrities to anticipated future roles.
Aware of parental and school regulation of media content and activities, children fitted their responses to regulation lest media devices were withheld. Children exercised self-regulation by taking into account the perspectives and attitudes of parents and teachers.
Proposition 19: The stronger the socialisation to rules on media use, the greater the likelihood of children conforming to these rules.
Corollary 19.1: Children respond positively to rules on media use if they understand the need for such rules.
Children’s use of the media revealed their awareness and comfort with their digital selves and networked identities. Regardless of how the school and the home regulated children’s use of media devices, their engagement with media through gaming, social networking, television viewing, and other related activities, accompanied by their responses to digital technology not only provided opportunities for learning and interaction but also helped equip them for future roles in the network society.
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8.3. Recommendations for future research
In Chapter 1 it was mentioned that this study was conducted in South Australia.
Thirty (30) Filipino immigrant children, aged 8-12, enrolled in South Australian primary schools participated in the study. Claims about generalisability for the population of
Filipino immigrant children in Australia have not been made. However, experiences of the children were used to formulate substantive conclusions. The empirical conclusions about the experiences of the children were limited to the respondents.
Participants in this study were limited to first generation immigrant children. These children were Philippine-born and most had experiences of schooling in the Philippines.
Excluded from the study were Australian-born children of Filipino ethnicity and children of
Filipino immigrants with intellectual and cognitive disabilities, neurological disorders, and mental illnesses.
Further research utilising the same design could be undertaken. Follow-up research on these children on completion of primary school or on children in high school could be undertaken. A longitudinal study on the same children would add a dimension to the experiences of children of Filipino immigrants who move from primary to high school.
Likewise, the study could include perspectives on the socialisation experiences of children of Filipino immigrants who are in high school.
Children of immigrants across cultures, immigrant generations (second generation children of immigrants), or across locales (Australian states) could be undertaken that focuses on the perspectives of primary school children of immigrants in the wake of immigration to Australia. Comparative analysis of these cohorts of children would add to the literature on children of immigrants.
Further research could also be undertaken up by utilising either or both qualitative and quantitative research designs. As noted in Chapter 1, symbolic interactionism provided
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a useful theoretical framework. Symbolic interactionism could be used with participant observation or video analysis, or a combination of methodologies to add to the data. Other theories could also be utilised using various methodologies.
While various theoretical and methodological underpinnings are available to understand children’s perspectives, what is more important is further research on children that acknowledges that they are active participants in human group life and are co-creators of knowledge.
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Appendices
A. Interview schedule
Research aims Basic questions
Examine the Filipino immigrant 1. Why did your family come to Australia? child’s home experiences 2. What do you remember about the Philippines? What do you miss about the Philippines? 3. Describe your usual family activities. What do you enjoy doing together as a family? 4. How would you describe your parents? How would you describe your relationship with your parents? Describe your relationship with your siblings. 5. What beliefs and traditions do you practise in the home which you think are uniquely Filipino? 6. How well do you speak Filipino? How comfortable are you in speaking English? 7. What do you like about Australia? 8. What beliefs and practices would you classify as more Australian than Filipino? 9. What beliefs and practices have you encountered at home that you find tricky or problematic? 10. How did you deal with these conflicts? Investigate the immigrant 11. Have you been to school in the Philippines prior to child’s schooling experiences coming to Australia? How different is your former school in the Philippines from the one you go to now? How similar are they? 12. How do you find your new school here? How would you describe your experiences inside the classroom? 13. How do you find your subjects? What difficulties have you encountered? 14. What activities in the classroom do you like the most? What don’t you like? 15. How would you describe your other school experiences such as excursions, co-curricular and extra-curricular activities? 16. How do you find your teachers? 17. How do you find your classmates? How would you describe your relationship with your peers? 18. How many friends do you have? What activities do you enjoy doing together? 19. What do you do during break time? 20. What difficulties have you encountered in school? With the difficulties and challenges you mentioned, how did you handle these? 21. How do you see yourself a few years from now? What do you want to be when you finish schooling? 22. What knowledge, skills, attitudes, and abilities do you think you need to achieve this? 23. If you are given three wishes, what would they be?
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B. Ethics protocol documents
Note: Title of the thesis (Educational and cultural challenges of first generation Filipino immigrant children in South Australian primary schools) was tentative in these documents.
1. Ethics Approval from the Human Research Ethics Committee
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2. Renewal of Ethics Approval
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3. Ethics Approval from the Department of Education and Child Services
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4. Advertisement/ Letter of Invitation
Contact details were provided in the original document.
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5. Information Sheet for Parents (page 1)
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Information Sheet for Parents (page 2)
Contact details were provided in the original document.
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5. Parent Consent Form
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6. Child Assent Form
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7. Complaints Procedure and Information for Parents
Contact details were provided in the original document.
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C. Addressing trustworthiness
Checklist of the provisions to address Lincoln’s and Guba’s Four Criteria for Trustworthiness (Adopted from Shenton 2004)
Quality criterion Researcher action Done
Credibility Adoption of symbolic interactionism as an appropriate, well recognised research methods Development of early familiarity with the culture of the participants Purposeful sampling of individuals serving as informants; with the aid of gatekeepers Triangulation via use of different types of informants (age levels, by school type) and different sites (Adelaide and surrounding suburbs) Tactics to help ensure honesty in informants Iterative questioning in data collection dialogues Debriefing sessions between researcher and supervisors Peer scrutiny of project Use of ‘reflective commentary’ Description of background, qualifications and experience of the researcher Member checks of data collected and interpretations/theories formed Thick description of phenomenon under scrutiny Examination of previous research to frame findings Transferability Provision of background data to establish context of study and detailed description of phenomenon in question to allow comparisons to be made Dependability In-depth methodological description to allow study to be repeated Confirmability Expert and peer review of critical others to reduce effect of investigator bias Admission of researcher’s beliefs and assumptions Recognition of shortcomings in study’s methods and their potential effects In-depth methodological description to allow integrity of research results to be scrutinised Stored data (recordings, transcripts, memos, notes, drafts) for ‘audit trail’
References: Lincoln, YS & Guba, EG 1985, Naturalistic inquiry, Sage Publications, Beverly Hills, CA. Shenton, AK 2004, 'Strategies for ensuring trustworthiness in qualitative research projects', Education for Information, vol. 22, no. 2, pp. 63-75.
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